Roughly half of the 1,341 cases decided from 2002 to 2013 — 677 — involved an attorney donor who gave either before or after the decision. Of these, 138 cases involved attorneys facing disciplinary action from the court. The court also ruled on 120 felony cases, 37 personal injury cases and 31 money judgment cases involving one or more attorney donors.

When looking only at contributions that came in before a case was decided, 331 cases involved an attorney donor.

From 2002 to 2013, there were 338 instances in which a justice ruled in a case involving an attorney donor who gave before a ruling, and only eight in which the justice who received a contribution withdrew.

How we did the analysis

To produce this story, the Wisconsin Center of Investigative Journalism looked at 1,341 case decisions and 22,307 campaign contributions.

It gathered Wisconsin Supreme Court opinions dating back to July 2002, to identify outcomes and attorney names. The analysis found 677 cases involving 472 attorney donors.

For each case, the clients, decision date, rulings of individual justices and more were added to a database.

Campaign donations dating back to 2002 were also gathered, from the state Government Accountability Board. This data, from various file formats and locations, was re-formatted and added to a single spreadsheet. The analysis tracked which justice received money, as well as donor names, dates and, when available, occupations.

Using both datasets, donors and attorneys were matched. The $210,750 total included only money from donors who could be positively identified as attorneys, leaving out many possible lawyer contributions.

(Candidates are supposed to report the occupation and employer of every donor who gives more than $100. But often this does not happen. For instance, Justice David Prosser’s campaign listed occupations for fewer than half of his donations larger than $100.)

The total also leaves out donations from colleagues, family members and clients involved in the case.

Because of the complexity involved in disciplinary cases, such decisions were left out of the study.

But attorneys who have faced disciplinary action from the court have contributed to justices. The largest total contribution came from Michael Hupy, a Milwaukee-based personal injury litigator whom the court publicly reprimanded in 2011 for mailing brochures that misrepresented one of his competitors. Justice Patience Roggensack dissented in the ruling. About a year and a half later, Hupy gave $10,000 to her campaign.

Attorney contributions were tallied by the side they represented, either the petitioner or the respondent. If both sides in a case contributed to a justice, the side contributing most was considered the “donor side.” If they contributed equally, the case was excluded from the correlation analysis.

In some cases, attorneys were not involved at the Supreme Court level but had been involved earlier in the case history.

The analysis of the correlation between donations and votes looked only at donations that came in before the case was decided. The $210,750 figure also included post-ruling donations, because of the possibility that these could influence justices’ future decisions.

To find the correlation between donations and decisions, the analysis looked only at rulings where justices clearly favored one or the other side. “Concur/dissent” opinions were not calculated, nor were more complex decisions such as “Reversed in part, affirmed in part.”

Billionaire Sheldon Adelson at a June 10, 2010, press conference in Hong Kong.

The contribution is listed as having been received Oct. 23. That puts it outside of the reporting window for campaign finance reports due Oct. 27, but the party reported it Sunday as a late contribution, as required.

On the same day as Adelson’s donation, Walker’s campaign reported receiving a $450,000 late contribution from the Wisconsin GOP.

Adelson, whose personal wealth has been estimated at more than $30 billion, has in recent years emerged as a major player in national elections. He reportedly contributed nearly $150 million to the 2012 elections, on behalf of Republican candidates. The Daily Beast has reported that he is poised to give as much as $100 million in the current elections.

Adelson’s six-figure contribution to the Wisconsin GOP was made possible by changes in state law wrought by recent court rulings.

“In the past, an individual’s contributions to PACs or parties was effectively limited to $10,000 because of the $10,000 aggregate limit in contributions in any one year,” said Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board.

But a federal court ruling earlier this year struck down the aggregate limits for individual contributions. In response, the GAB in May said it would no longer enforce limits on how much individuals can give to parties and political action committees. Its website now states that these contributions are “unlimited.”

Magney said the law would allow a party or political action committee to “spend the money any way it sees fit,” although “the donor cannot designate who the money must go to.” The party can use the funds from Adelson to benefit a single candidate like Republican Gov. Scott Walker, to whom individual contribution limits still apply.

“We’ve seen sensible limits on campaign contributions thrown out the door,” said Mike McCabe of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan elections watchdog. “So now you have billionaires who can throw around previously unimaginable sums to influence campaigns.”

In March, Walker traveled to Las Vegas, along with other potential presidential contenders, to speak at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual spring leadership meeting. The appearances were largely seen as an attempt to woo Adelson’s support. Adelson was not present for Walker’s speech, in which he criticized the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

Adelson has given money to Walker before, according to the GAB. In 2012, when normal limits were suspended under changed rules for recall elections, he gave $250,000 to Walker’s campaign. Earlier this year, with the limits again in place, he gave Walker a maximum contribution of $10,000.

Officials at the Republican Party of Wisconsin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2014/10/casino-magnate-sheldon-adelson-gives-650000-to-wisconsin-gop-as-election-draws-near/feed/0Reports illuminate lobby efforts; Wisconsin Property Taxpayers again top spenderhttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2014/08/reports-illuminate-lobby-efforts-wisconsin-property-taxpayers-again-top-spender/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2014/08/reports-illuminate-lobby-efforts-wisconsin-property-taxpayers-again-top-spender/#commentsWed, 06 Aug 2014 12:21:32 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=34162Given the many millions of dollars spent by interest groups to help determine who gets elected, it’s easy to overlook the many millions more being spent trying to influence them once they are.

In the first six months of this year, Wisconsin’s 700-plus registered lobby groups collectively invested $14.1 million trying to shape state law or policy, according to new filings with the state Government Accountability Board.

That’s actually down a bit from 2013, when spending in the first and second halves of the year totaled $17 million and $14.8 million, respectively. Lobby outlays tend to run higher in odd-numbered years, when the two-year legislative session is young and the budget is in play.

Leading the pack in spending from January through June 2014 was Wisconsin Property Taxpayers Inc., a membership-based group devoted to reforming “Wisconsin’s antiquated and regressive property tax system.” WPT reportedly spent $482,893 on 2,314 hours of lobbying.

The top results from the first half of 2014.

That makes it the state’s highest-spending lobby group for the second consecutive reporting period — and the top spender in first three-quarters of the 2013-14 session, at nearly $1.2 million.

Michael Birkley, the group’s legislative director and sole registered lobbyist, received $31,200 for 938 hours of lobbying. Most of WPT’s total went to “non-lobbyist employees” — eight field workers whose discussions with people around the state about legislation are counted as a lobbying expense.

Birkley says his group’s “principal lobbying effort” is its ongoing push to eliminate the personal (as opposed to real estate) property tax. He reckons the tax, paid by businesses on non-exempt equipment, accounts for about 2 percent of total property tax collections.

A billto kill the tax was introduced on April 3, the last day of the session’s last floor period, and promptly died. Its lone sponsor, Mary Williams, R-Medford, is not seeking re-election.

WPT is also working to end local technical college taxes, shifting this burden to the state, and protect use-based assessments of agricultural land, which is important to the farmers who make up about two-thirds of its 18,500 membership.

WMC also backed recent bills to let workers “voluntarily choose to work” without a weekly day off and preempt local governments from making contractors pay prevailing wages on local projects using state funds. Neither passed.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Hospital Association spent $261,539 on 1,723 hours of lobbying. A third of this went to help defeat a proposal to cap what health-care providers can charge for services under worker’s compensation. That bill spurred dozens of groups to lobby an astonishing 2,868 hours, 59 percent by opponents.

A final fun finding: The lobby group General Motors LLC has in recent years paid around $36,000 every reporting period to the law firm of Foley & Lardner, regardless of how much lobbying it does. Such retainer agreements are common.

In the first half of 2013, Foley & Lardner received $36,397 from GM for 131 hours of lobbying, which comes to $278 per hour. But in the first half of 2014, it was paid $36,268 for 18.3 lobby hours, or $1,982 per hour. Nice work if you can get it.

Sidebars

On public radio

In January 2009, Milwaukee area attorney Mark Thomsen donated $5,000 to a Wisconsin official’s political campaign. Thomsen soon sent an additional $500 just eight days before the official cast a key vote on an insurance issue that greatly affected Thomsen and his clients.

The public official’s vote was not in the state Assembly, or the state Senate. It was in the state’s highest court.

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision came down in Thomsen’s favor, the majority included the recipient of Thomsen’s money: Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

Abrahamson, in fact, is the top recipient of support from attorneys whose cases reach the Supreme Court, pulling in $188,650 over the past 11 years, a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis shows.

Those attorneys contributed a total of $210,750 to current justices, either before or after their cases were heard, from July 2002 through June 2013. Fifty-six percent of these contributions came in before the court’s rulings.

And as happened after Thomsen’s donations, the analysis found, justices tend to rule in favor of clients whose attorneys contribute to the justices’ election campaigns.

In instances where a contribution came in before a case was decided, justices favored those attorneys’ clients 59 percent of the time.

The Center’s analysis showed that the more money Abrahamson received from donor attorneys, the more likely she was to vote in favor of their position. Fifty-eight percent of her rulings sided with contributors overall, while the figure was 71 percent for cases in which a lawyer donated $1,500 or more to her campaign.

Joe Heim, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said that the Center’s findings suggest a possible problem because “the taint of — or at least the appearance of — the influence of campaign contributions can damage the image of the courts as a neutral and unbiased branch of government.”

Adam Skaggs, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, a national group that supports public financing of judicial elections, said that “the prevalence of lawyer contributions definitely raises questions.”

“I think the vast majority of judges are not going to be influenced by contributions, but the public is still going to think that there could be influence,” Skaggs added.

“Any research that shows a correlation between donations and a justice’s decision on a case is only going to create greater concern among members of the public,” McCabe said. “I don’t know what could possibly be worse for the Supreme Court than the impression that justice has been bought.”

McCabe endorsed the Center’s approach of tallying contributions made before and after a case was heard. “A lot of donors give to say ’please,’ and a lot give to say ’thank you,’ ” he said. “Both are very corrosive.”

Justices have the option of recusing themselves from cases involving donor attorneys but have rarely stepped aside, remaining involved in nearly 98 percent of such cases, the Center found.

Abrahamson did not respond to interview requests. But when asked specifically about her status as the court’s leading recipient of donations from attorneys with cases before the court, and the larger issue of recusal, Abrahamson wrote in an email: “(A) judge makes a recusal decision in each case taking into consideration all the particular circumstances involved.”

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, shown here at a March 13, 2013, oral argument, took in the vast majority of donations from attorneys whose cases came before the Wisconsin Supreme Court over the past 11 years. Jake Harper/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

‘There is no correlation’

The issue of campaign donations to state Supreme Court candidates has sparked bitter division on the court. The court’s conservative majority has rejected efforts to tighten the rules for when justices must withdraw from a case.

Abrahamson, who is usually associated with the court’s liberal bloc, has proposed that an outside body determine when justices should withdraw from a case involving a conflict of interest.

In Thomsen’s insurance case, he represented clients, including Heritage Farms Inc., that lost 572 acres of land to a fire caused by an out-of-control burn pile on a Marquette County campground. The high court held in 2009 that Thomsen’s clients were eligible for attorney fees and double damages.

When the issue came before the high court a second time, Abrahamson in 2012 again sided with the majority in favor of Thomsen’s clients.

Thomsen did not respond to requests for comment.

Interactive data

Besides Abrahamson, justices tending to side with donor attorneys were Annette Ziegler, who took in $8,300 from attorneys with cases that came before the court; Patience Roggensack, who accepted $7,966; Ann Walsh Bradley, with $3,260; and David Prosser, who took in just $225.

Justice Michael Gableman, who accepted $2,350 from such attorneys, did not make that list, having sided with his donors’ clients in exactly half of four cases.

The remaining justice on the seven-member court, Patrick Crooks, was not included in the Center’s analysis. Crooks, who ran unopposed and took in very little money in his 2006 election, was not required to file electronic campaign finance records.

Abrahamson chose to remain involved in two cases argued by personal injury lawyer William Cannon, a colleague of Mark Thomsen who made four donations totaling $7,000 to Abrahamson’s 2009 campaign.

Two of Cannon’s cases, a product liability case and a medical malpractice suit, were decided by the court after he donated the money. Attorneys working with Cannon on the cases, including Thomsen, contributed an additional $21,150 to Abrahamson.

The court ruled against Cannon’s client in one of the cases, but Abrahamson sided with his clients in both suits. Abrahamson ruled in his clients’ favor in four previous cases, as well. (Cannon has a history of political giving, and gave $500 to 2013 Supreme Court candidate Ed Fallone, as well as $4,500 to Justice Louis Butler, who lost to Gableman in 2008.)

Cannon, asked about the contributions to Abrahamson and the rulings in his clients’ favor, responded indignantly. “You sound so stupid,” he said. “There is no correlation. That’s an absolute lie.”

Justice Roggensack, often seen as a member of the court’s conservative bloc, offered a more diplomatic critique of the Center’s findings.

“It makes the court sound bought and paid for, and I don’t think that’s why the contributions come in,” Roggensack said in an interview.

Like several people interviewed for this report, Roggensack said that contributions to justices have more to do with shared viewpoints, rather than attempts to change justices’ votes: “People support me based on their view that (my) philosophy is appropriate for the job that I hold.”

Roggensack sided with her attorney donors 57 percent of the time. She said she insulated herself from campaign activities and asked a staffer to inform her of larger contributions when they were relevant to a pending case.

“If I had a $10,000 contribution from a person whose case was pending before me, I wouldn’t sit on that case,” Roggensack said.

Butler, the former state Supreme Court justice, said that justices were not likely to be influenced by money. “You decide a case based on your view of the law, whatever that might be,” he said.

Wisconsin’s justices have faced concerns over their relationships with attorneys before.

In 2011, Gableman cast a deciding vote in two cases being argued by attorneys from Michael Best & Friedrich, a firm that had represented Gableman for free in a 2008 ethics case.

The same year, Prosser was criticized for planning to participate in a case involving the Troupis Law Office, which helped handle Prosser’s recount effort in the 2011 election. He eventually withdrew.

Recusal reform bills go nowhere

Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, introduced bills this year that would disqualify a judge or justice whenever a party in a case, including an attorney, has given more than $1,000 in financial campaign support or whenever “a reasonable person would question whether the judge or justice could act in an impartial manner.”

Another bill would require judges or justices to state in writing the reasons for not disqualifying themselves if asked to do so.

The bills are similar to legislation Hebl introduced in the 2011-12 session, which did not receive a public hearing.

In June, the State Bar of Wisconsin proposed limiting justices to one 16-year term, expressly to address the perception that justices are “motivated by concerns for re-election.”

But critics, including Hebl and McCabe, contend that public financing for judicial campaigns would better address the issue. This appears to be a lost cause: The legislature dismantled Wisconsin’s 33-year-old public financing system following the 2011 election.

‘Out of step’ with other states

Direct contributions to judicial campaigns are a small portion of overall spending in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court elections, as they have been dwarfed in recent years by outside spending. Attorney donations are an even smaller subset. (The Center’s analysis looked only at attorneys listed in case information, not their spouses, fellow law firm members or clients involved in the case.)

But such contributions are central to the ongoing debate over judicial recusal in Wisconsin — and across the nation.

Of the $22.3 million spent on the five Supreme Court elections since 2005, about a third went directly to campaigns, according to estimates from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The rest came into the process as independent expenditures or “issue ads” by outside groups, such as the Greater Wisconsin Committee and Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2009 case Caperton v. Massey, ruled that a West Virginia state supreme court justice should have bowed out, having received $3 million in campaign support from Massey Coal Co.’s CEO and president. Instead, the justice voted to overturn a $50 million verdict against the company.

“In all the circumstances of this case, due process requires recusal,” the U.S. high court held.

In 2008, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin asked the state’s Supreme Court to adopt a standard requiring recusal in any case involving a contributor of $1,000 or more.

Justice Bradley, joined by Crooks and Abrahamson, issued a forceful dissent: “There can be no doubt that the actions of the majority have substantially undermined the public trust and confidence in the judiciary’s impartiality.”

“Wisconsin is out of step with other states and with the feds in regard to our standard,” Crooks said in an interview. “I didn’t think we should have outside groups and organizations writing provisions of our judicial code for us. … We needed to have input from other persons that would be affected by the provisions we ultimately adopted.”

Part of the trouble, Crooks has written, stems from differences between state law and the Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct. The statute calls for recusal when “a judge determines that, for any reason, he or she cannot, or it appears he or she cannot, act in an impartial manner.”

The court has interpreted that as meaning it is up to the individual justice to make this call, while the judicial code relies on the perceptions of “reasonable, well-informed persons.”

Crooks said he would like the Legislature to create an objective standard forcing recusal whenever a reasonable person might perceive a problem.

Appearance of impropriety

Roggensack opposes changing the state’s standards for recusal, warning that adopting a mandatory disqualification rule could have an unintended consequence. “If a thousand dollars was the limit, you could give that amount to all the justices you don’t want on the case,” she said.

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, found that scenario implausible. “Theoretically, an alligator could crawl out of my ear. It just doesn’t happen in the real world,” said Heck, whose non-partisan group has long pushed for public financing of judicial campaigns.

Heck supports the thousand-dollar limit, not because a contribution “necessarily influences the justice, but it’s the public perception,” he said.

Polling suggests that the public is indeed concerned about the effect of campaign contributions in the judiciary.

A survey performed in 2008 for Justice at Stake, a national coalition that advocates for fair and impartial courts, found that just 5 percent of Wisconsin residents believed campaign contributions had no influence on judges. And a 2009 USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that 90 percent of those surveyed believed judges should withdraw from cases involving campaign donors.

Apart from its recusal standard, the judicial code also requires judges and justices to pass the “test for appearance of impropriety” to avoid creating “in reasonable minds a perception that the judge’s ability to carry out judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality and competence is impaired.”

When Crooks was asked if there should be more donation-related recusals given that standard and the polling data, he replied: “Probably.”

The latest

June 30: News reports confirm that Gov. Scott Walker vetoes a provision in the state budget that would have evicted the Center from its UW-Madison offices and forbidden UW employees from working with it. Center responds by thanking Walker and launching the WCIJ Education Fund drive to support the training of investigative journalists.

June 21: Decision on Center now up to Walker. Both houses of the state Legislature have declined to ax a state budget provision that would evict the Center from the University of Wisconsin and bar UW employees from working with it as part of their duties. Democrats and Republicans briefly debated an amendment to remove this language on the floor of the Senate. The amendment was defeated on a 17-16 vote. Read the full story here.

The issue

On June 5, the Wisconsin Legislature’s budget-writing committee, with no public warning, approved a measure evicting the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from its campus offices and forbidding university employees from working with the Center. The full Legislature and Gov. Scott Walker have the power to remove the measure before approving the budget, but only days remain. Many journalists, journalism educators and members of the public across the nation say the Center’s collaboration with the school must be saved because it’s an important experiment in a future model for investigative reporting and journalism education — one that already is producing high-impact stories that strengthen democracy, while training young journalists at no direct cost to taxpayers.

What happened

Wednesday, June 5

Joint Finance Committee lawmakers voted at about 6 a.m. to add a provision to the state budget expelling the “Center for Investigative Journalism” from University of Wisconsin offices. The vote was 12-4 on party lines, with Republicans in the majority.

Center for Investigative Journalism. Prohibit the Board of Regents from permitting the Center for Investigative Journalism to occupy any facilities owned or leased by the Board of Regents. In addition, prohibit UW employees from doing any work related to the Center for Investigative Journalism as part of their duties as a UW employee.

Thursday, June 6

At an afternoon press conference, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette declined to answer questions from reporters about whose idea it was to evict the Center. They said they planned to keep the measure in the budget.

“I haven’t made any commitment one way or another about vetoing or not vetoing,” Walker said.

What’s not happening:

Lawmakers are not defunding the Center. The Center receives no funding from the University of Wisconsin.

Its $400,000 budget is supported by private foundations, individuals and news organizations. It operates in two small offices in Vilas Communication Hall — used by its four-member professional staff and four UW-Madison reporting interns — under a Facilities Use Agreement (see Documents) that requires the Center to provide paid internships, classroom collaborations, guest lectures and other educational services.

What happens next?

The budget, including the provision to evict the Center, passed both houses of the state Legislature and will become law unless Walker vetoes it. He may veto the entire measure, or use line-item veto powers to veto a portion of it.

The Center’s response

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism staff and guests gather after the 2012 Milwaukee Press Club annual Awards for Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism banquet. The Center won eight awards this year, including a sweep of the innovative feature category.

The Center is an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Madison, Wis., that collaborates with other media outlets. The Center works with its partners and mainstream and ethnic news media to improve the quality and quantity of investigative journalism in Wisconsin. Our focus is on government integrity and quality of life issues.

The Center doesn’t take sides or play favorites. Its articles have provided in-depth coverage of government institutions, including the University of Wisconsin System, which houses it.

“Today I’m overwhelmed by messages of support from journalists and journalism educators, here and across the nation,” said Andy Hall, the Center’s executive director. “They’re concerned that the Joint Finance Committee’s action could have a ripple effect, limiting the public’s access to critical information that holds the government accountable, threatening the operations of other campus-based nonprofit journalism centers across the nation, and unreasonably restricting academic freedoms of educators to draw upon the best resources for educating students.”

Hall said the Center was “blindsided” by the JFC’s action.

The Center operates in two small offices in Vilas Communication Hall — used by its four-member professional staff and four UW-Madison reporting interns — under a Facilities Use Agreement that requires the Center to provide paid internships, classroom collaborations, guest lectures and other educational services.

Last year, Associated Press Media Editors honored the Center and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication with its inaugural Innovator of the Year for College Students award.

The Joint Finance Committee recently relied upon our investigation into the reliability of GPS tracking of offenders to curtail the governor’s requested expansion of GPS tracking until the reliability can be proven.

“The Center’s award-winning journalism is making Wisconsin a better place by shining a light on key state issues to strengthen our democracy while training the next generation of investigative journalists,” Hall said.

More about the Center

About us: What we do, who we are and how we’re funded, among other links.

Where our stories appear. The Center’s work is published by more than 230 news outlets across Wisconsin and the nation. See maps of where our stories end up. As of May 2013, it has published 107 major reports and nearly 100 columns, reaching more than 25 million people.

Awards: The Center won gold, silver and bronze Milwaukee Press Club awards, eight total, for its work in 2012. The Center also won a national award — the Associated Press Media Editors’ first Innovator of the Year for College Students — for its work with UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication students.

Support from the UW-Madison, the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and others

Updated Monday, July 1.Investigative Reporters and Editors. “Beyond the impact of the stories it tells, the Center stands as a unique training ground for a new generation of young reporters learning the skills of investigative journalism under the guidance of executive director and former IRE Board member, Andy Hall. Targeting such work is indefensible.”

UW-Madison.University reaffirms support for investigative journalism. “Arbitrarily prohibiting UW-Madison employees from doing any work related to the Center for Investigative Journalism is a direct assault on our academic freedom; simply, it is legislative micromanagement and overreach at its worst,” says Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters & Science, which oversees the journalism school.

UW-Madison Interim Chancellor David Ward.“The best and brightest researchers – and entrepreneurs, and families, and investors in Wisconsin’s economy – cannot function when a government body holds more sway over their decisions than years of careful experience. The famed ‘sifting and winnowing’ quote, immortalized in a plaque on the front of Bascom Hall, is a thoroughly Wisconsin statement, referencing the hard work of our heritage at the same time it deftly defends the values of academic freedom:

‘Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.’ –Taken from a report of the Board of Regents in 1894″

Charlie Sykes, conservative radio host at Milwaukee’s WTMJ. Republished by the Center: Petty, vindictive, dumb
“At a time when conservatives should be embracing government restraint, the motion combines some of the worst aspects of the IRS and DOJ scandals – using government to punish those perceived as political enemies combined with a clear assault on the free press. Who thought this was a good idea?”

PROFS President William F. Tracy. “As a faculty member active in shared governance, I can tell you that the collaboration between WCIJ and the School of Journalism & Mass Communication is just the kind of creative initiative that has given UW-Madison its stellar worldwide reputation. It carries on the Wisconsin Idea, the historic commitment by the university to enhance our quality of life.

Regarding the use of space at the university, UW-Madison has a formal, signed agreement with WCIJ where space in two small offices is exchanged for the guarantee of regular paid internships for students. All necessary levels of UW-Madison administration, including faculty and staff governance, approved the agreement. It is a contract, not a subsidy. Similarly, my department hosts the Wisconsin Crop Improvement Association, an organization of Wisconsin farmers dedicated to certifying seed quality. I can assure you, sharing space with WCIA has increased the level and quality of service agronomy faculty members provide to Wisconsin farmers.”

School of Journalism and Mass Communication faculty and staff.“The Wisconsin Center also helps train journalists for the future, not only nationally, but here in Wisconsin. The Center provides not just formal internships but guest lectures, case studies, story ideas, and technical expertise that faculty and students rely on both in and out of the classroom. This assistance is only possible because of the Center’s location in the School. The value of the training and paid internships provided by the Center far exceeds the minimal space and electricity provided, not only monetarily, but in its contribution to both good jobs for Wisconsin students and, perhaps more important, good reporters for Wisconsin newspapers. Virtually all Center interns have begun promising careers in journalism, many here in Wisconsin.”

School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “As written it would seem to broadly and recklessly infringe on our academic freedom in terms of research, teaching, and service. Our faculty and staff regularly collaborate with outside organizations on media-related projects in terms of research, teaching, and service.”

Greg Downey, director of UW School of Journalism & Mass Communication. “Over the past few years this innovative collaboration between our School and the Center has won national acclaim as a model for public-interest journalism and the “teaching hospital” strategy for professional education. This strategy, which puts professionals in close contact with students and academics, is heavily promoted (and, in fact, expected) by all the major foundations that fund work in our field. Our collaboration has turned a liability of underutilized space into an asset of professional expertise. It has provided nearly two dozen students with paid internships and a gateway to professional employment. And it has helped to bring increased status and visibility in terms of donations, research grants, and foundation attention to our campus (crucially important during the recent economic crisis). We think it’s been a great deal, for both UW students and Wisconsin taxpayers. And from the outcry we’ve heard over the past two weeks, it’s clear that our students, our alumni, and our professional colleagues think it’s been an asset to our School as well.”

Stephen J. A. Ward, director of George S. Turnbull Center for Journalism, in letter to WCIJ Executive Director Andy Hall. “I recently stepped down as director of the UW Center of Journalism Ethics. Over four years as director, I had the privilege of working with you, your center, and your news staff on issues of journalism ethics. I can vouch for the quality and non-partisan nature of your journalism. I know personally of the center’s high-minded and intense commitment to practicing journalism in the public interest. The center has broken many important stories for the information of all citizens – conservative or liberal. Wisconsin needs robust and outstanding non-profit journalism, as provided by your center. I also add that your center is well known across this country not only as a leader in new models for journalism, but also as a leader in articulating a ground-breaking ethics policy that promotes responsible, accurate and fair journalism.”

UW-Madison Teaching Assistants’ Association. “The Center fits into the history of journalistic innovation at UW, which led to the early radio broadcasting here, aiming to provide an essential service for the people of Wisconsin. The Center produces cutting-edge, award-winning stories that it gives away to publications around the state — publications that often don’t have the resources to do this kind of journalism. In this way, it is a manifestation of the Wisconsin Idea. The attack on the Center is fundamentally an attack on the Wisconsin Idea and the University of Wisconsin community.”

The University Committee and the Academic Staff Executive Committee. “We strongly urge you — in the name of academic freedom and the State of Wisconsin’s grand tradition of free inquiry — to remove the restrictions placed in the budget on the capacity of faculty members and students of our School of Journalism and Mass Communication to engage with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. These restrictions are a direct challenge to academic freedom. They hamper intellectual discovery, reduce opportunities for students to get hands-on experience putting what they’ve learned into practice, and run counter to the Wisconsin Idea by curtailing the university’s ability to serve the public good.”

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). “Particularly egregious is the Wisconsin legislative committee’s further attempt to prohibit journalism faculty members at UW-Madison from working with the WCIJ, which illustrates an exemplary case of academic-professional collaboration, and which should be a model for other journalism programs nationally and internationally. Such an ill-considered attempt is a clear violation of academic freedom, which is required to safeguard open inquiry and the creation of knowledge. We need more investigative reporting than ever in an age of ever-shrinking independent journalism due to financial constraints facing the news media as a whole.”

The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism. “As a fellow nonprofit organization that serves the public interest of our own home state through investigative journalism, IowaWatch stands firmly in solidarity with the Wisconsin Center.”

Vermont Journalism Trust board of trustees. “The board of the Vermont Journalism Trust supports the Investigative News Network’s statement of ‘disappointment and concern’ at the Wisconsin State Legislature’s maneuvers, which appear to be designed to thwart an independent and highly respected news organization. We strongly urge the legislature and governor’s office to reject this ill conceived and harmful proposal.”

Society of Professional Journalists, Madison Pro chapter.SPJ supports investigative journalism center. “Journalists across the country are increasingly subject to scrutiny and retaliation by political leaders of both parties. We don’t understand why the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee is requiring the center to leave UW-Madison, and we wish lawmakers had subjected this proposal to public debate. We believe the center will thrive, with or without a physical presence in the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communications.”

Deborah Blum, Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at UW-Madison.
“I regard the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism as an exceptional educational resource for our journalism students. They are trained in analytical thinking, in in-depth research and, equally important, in rigorous fact-checking through working with the center in our classes. It’s not surprising that many of their reports have won not only state-wide awards but received national recognition. It not only helps make our students more skilled, it helps make them some of the most employable young journalists in the country. The collaboration with WCIJ is a one of remarkable value to our institution and one that should not be lost.”

Reporting intern and UW-Madison journalism master's student Amy Karon learns how to collect audio in summer 2011. Karon is now a successful medical writer with interns of her own. Kate Golden/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Amy Karon, former reporting intern and owner of Karon Medical Writing. “I interned for 12 months with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism during 2011-2012. The internship was the highlight of my UW journalism master’s program. Center staff taught me advanced writing, analytical, and leadership skills that I continue to use daily in my profession as a technical medical writer.

“Twelve months after finishing my Center internship and master’s degree, I am a full-time female business owner who also supervises several college interns, teaching them the same database, communication, research, and project management skills that the Center taught me. Clearly, the Center opens doors for young people that extend far beyond the realm of investigative journalism. Interns at the Center learn advanced technical skills that increase their chances of employment and also learn to be responsible, level-headed and compassionate members of society.

“During hundreds of hours working with the Center during the political tempests of 2011-2012, I never once heard staff or interns express political views. The Center provided a rare respite from partisanship, a place totally committed to teaching and practicing short form, narrative and multimedia journalism. I laud the Center’s contributions to its interns and to the School of Journalism, the University of Wisconsin, and the people of Wisconsin.”

Center board member Herman Baumann.“I am a less-government, lower taxes, Second Amendment-loving, business-owning conservative. I also proudly serve on the Board of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (WCIJ). That’s why I was surprised to hear WCIJ incorrectly characterized as a ‘liberal organization’ by some members of the State Legislature.”

Letter from former student interns.“As students and graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who have previously interned, worked at or collaborated with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, we can attest that the award-winning Center’s presence on campus has been fundamental to helping us begin our careers as journalists.”

Their journalistic standards are unparalleled and their guidance transforms student pieces from B+ work that never leave the professor’s desk to award-winning stories that get published throughout the state.”

Prohibiting UW employees from doing any work related to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism as part of being a UW employee is indefensible. Such a prohibition cuts off educators from doing public service and staying in touch with a topic they teach and from furthering good work so that the profession can improve over time.”

Letter from leaders in the journalism field. “Finding ways to support fact-based, hard-hitting journalism remains a problem. The Wisconsin legislature should reject the proposal to weaken journalism and to harm an institution that has made significant contributions to University of Wisconsin students seeking serious education in journalism that holds powerful institutions to account. We think that’s what the First Amendment is about and we hope that a large majority of Wisconsin’s legislators agree.”

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), letter No. 1. “Indeed, the Joint Finance Committee’s proposed prohibition is extreme in its breadth, preventing faculty from performing any number of academic functions. For example, under the ban, faculty would be unable to read or discuss articles published by the WCIJ, to comment to WCIJ reporters on issues related to their scholarship or on matters of public concern, to assign WCIJ articles to students, or to cite WCIJ work in their research. The ban’s vagueness is similarly problematic, as it forces faculty to guess at the precise boundaries of the ban on “any work related to the Center,” no matter how seemingly remote. Laboring under the chilling effect engendered by such uncertainty, many faculty will rationally choose to self-censor—a deeply depressing outcome that contradicts the necessary function of our nation’s public universities. For these reasons, the ban is flatly unconstitutional and must be rescinded.”

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), letter No. 2. “We urge you to take decisive, immediate action to protect the academic freedom of UW faculty. In order to preserve the marketplace of ideas at Wisconsin’s public campuses, renowned nationwide for their tradition of inquiry and debate, the Committee’s modification must be rejected and removed immediately.”

The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

One day last October, Sgt. Louise Hackel of the Clark County Sheriff’s Department was summoned to deal with an emergency.

A distraught woman at the central Wisconsin county’s Community Services office was being involuntarily committed for mental health reasons. Hackel, one of four jail workers who arrived on the scene, said the woman was “actively resisting.”

When Hackel and her partner each grabbed an arm to lift the heavy-set woman from a chair, she “dropped dead-weight to the floor,” Hackel said, and both officers tumbled down with her. Hackel sustained a muscle injury that required chiropractic care.

Faced with a similar scenario today, Hackel might not respond the same way. That’s because she now has less protection in the event of an on-the-job disability than she did a few months ago.

Now, if possible, she would wait for someone else to assume the risk: “I would probably call on law enforcement officers in protective status.”

Hackel is one of about two dozen Clark County communications and corrections workers who were recently stripped of protective status, a state employment classification available to workers in high-risk professions.

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In recent months, this change has occurred in at least 10 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties; efforts to do the same are under way in several more. More than 80 reclassified employees have filed appeals with the state, a process that could take more than a year.

The issue has arisen in the aftermath of 2011 Act 10, the controversial law passed by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature that imposed sweeping changes on government employees. The act exempted public safety workers, elsewhere defined as those, minimally, with protective status. That has made this classification more coveted — and endangered.

Across the state, mini-Act 10 battles are being fought over which public employees qualify for protective status. For now, the focus has been on jail workers, but there is concern that this classification could be challenged for other public safety employees.

When their protective status classification is taken away, jailers lose most collective bargaining rights and may be required, like other public workers, to pay substantially more toward their pensions.

Clark County Jail Sgt. Joel Smith has calculated that, for him, this change amounts to a $3,500 annual kick in the wallet. “In addition,” he said, “our wages have been frozen and our insurance rates have increased dramatically.”

Protective status workers can retire earlier — at age 50 for partial benefits and age 54 for full benefits. Protective workers reclassified as general employees retain this ability, but new hires will face higher retirement ages — ranging from age 57 to 65 for full benefits depending on years of service.

The loss of protective status also ends workers’ eligibility for duty disability, a state program that provides a higher level of income reimbursement to disabled workers than does workers compensation. That’s a big deal to workers like Hackel — especially given a recent near-fatal attack on a jailer in Marathon County.

Andrew Phillips, a Mequon-based attorney whose firm does legal work for several dozen Wisconsin counties, has advised county officials around the state to revoke jail employees’ protective status, to save money and conform to the letter of the law.

“This usually comes up in the context of collective bargaining,” Phillips said. When it’s time to negotiate new contracts, Phillips and others contend that some jail employees have mostly lost their rights to bargain.

The reclassification has been vigorously opposed by county sheriffs and the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association. They say it is based on misinformation, undermines recruitment and morale, and ends up costing counties more than they save.

“They didn’t understand what they did,” said Clark County Sheriff Greg Herrick, referring to the closed-door decisions made in his county. “I’m sitting here along with many other sheriffs struggling with staffing issues created by blunders they made.”

Illusory savings?

The employment classification “protective occupation participant” is used by the state Department of Employee Trust Funds, which manages pension benefits for public workers. Most work for local governments like cities and counties that voluntarily participate in the program; about a quarter are state employees.

Less than 10 percent of the fund’s roughly 250,000 active participants are considered protective. It is up to each employer to classify its workers, based on guidance in state law and ETF interpretations.

The classification has even been the subject of collective bargaining — before Act 10 made it a litmus test for full bargaining rights. While Phillips said the law is clear that “protective status has been a prohibited subject of bargaining for 20 years,” jailers in some counties have traded it for other gains.

“Over the years a lot of county jailers bargained away their protective status,” said Dean Meyer, executive director of the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association.

In some counties, the lack of protective status is a sore spot with jail workers.

“They do not appreciate us here at all,” said Kim Lavasseur, a veteran correctional officer in Ashland County, where jail staffers have long had general status. “We’re just considered pieces of crap.” Lavasseur says that, as a jail worker, “I’ve risked my life. I’ve been kicked, hit and spit on.”

Sgt. Louise Hackel is one of about two dozen Clark County jail staffers who lost protective status earlier this year. Shane Opatz/Eau Claire Leader-Telegram.

Currently, according to a review by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, 23 counties have protective status for jail workers, and 48 don’t. (One county, Menominee, contracts with Shawano County for jail services; workers there have general status.) Among those who don’t are some larger counties, including Milwaukee and Racine.

Ten counties — Bayfield, Chippewa, Clark, Green Lake, Kewaunee, Marquette, Ozaukee, Polk, Price and Waushara — have gone from protective to general status within the past two years, since the passage of Act 10. Phillips and his firm were involved in most of these cases.

There is ongoing discussion about changing jail employees’ status in at least four other counties — Buffalo, Douglas, Dunn and Monroe. And it is expected to arise elsewhere as current contracts with jail employees come up for renewal. (Phillips confirmed that he has been engaged by other, unnamed counties “to have this discussion.”)

Meyer, whose association believes counties should be listening to sheriffs on the impacts of classification decisions, said local officials “are looking for cost-saving measures, which is the responsible thing to do.” But he thinks Phillips has been providing incomplete information, and that promised savings may prove illusory.

“There’s no doubt in most of our minds that the information this attorney is sharing is very slanted, if not incorrect,” Meyer said.

In Clark County, where 22 workers (including Hackel) lost protective status in mid-January, Sheriff Herrick said the change has eliminated collective bargaining agreements that allowed the county to avoid overtime expenditures.

“The savings that they thought they were going to have by taking the protective away is being eaten up by the overtime hours,” Herrick said, adding that the change has also hurt morale. “I have deputies who are applying elsewhere. There’s a lot of hard feelings.”

Wayne Hendrickson, chairman of the Clark County Board, the county’s highest ranking official, said revoking the workers’ protective status “was a necessary thing for us to meet our budget for 2013.” He shrugs off Herrick’s concern about overtime, saying the county is looking to reduce outlays in this area by hiring two new employees.

In Ozaukee County last year, the sheriff warned that changes in benefits, including the reclassification of jail employees, would lead to resignations. The county imposed the changes anyway and a total of seven workers, including five jail employees, left their jobs suddenly late last year.

Ozaukee County Undersheriff Jim Johnson said the department incurred more than $80,000 in overtime costs in just the first two months of this year. He “conservatively” predicts total additional overtime costs of $180,000 before the vacancies are filled and new workers trained.

In Lafayette County, Sheriff Scott Pedley calculated that the county would incur heavy costs if it had to hire and train new jail deputies to replace those who would leave. The county is not currently pursuing the change, which Phillips had recommended.

“The deputies have been able to preserve protective status, with my blessing,” Pedley said.

“It is Illegal”

Attorney Andrew Phillips has advised county officials around the state to revoke jail employees’ protective status, to save money and conform to the letter of the law. Photo courtesy of Phillips Borowski, S.C.

Phillips, of the law firm Phillips Borowski, represents local governmental entities including school districts around the state. One of his listed specialties is helping these “transition from a union to non-union environment.”

In addition to his work for individual counties, Phillips serves as general counsel of the Wisconsin Counties Association, a lobby and support group for state counties. Phillips said his work on protective status with individual counties has “nothing to do with” his work for the association.

Counties association official Mike Blaska agreed, saying the group has no involvement in these battles. While it has opposed requiring that all jailers have protective status, it believes counties should make classification decisions based on statutory criteria.

In county after county, Phillips has argued against protective status for jail employees, saying they do not meet one of the tests set by ETF rules — that at least 51 percent of their duties consist of active law enforcement.

Jim Palmer, executive director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, a union representing law enforcement, accuses Phillips and his firm of distorting this standard by factoring only the time jailers spend on certain tasks, not how regularly they face certain risks.

“If you applied that same analysis to every police chief and sheriff in the state, none of them would qualify,” Palmer said. “Obviously, that’s an absurd result.”

Palmer suggests that firefighters and other law enforcement officers, like cops with desk jobs or even detectives, may find their claim to protective status similarly challenged. Phillips’ rationale, he said, “does clearly allow for a slippery slope.”

Sgt. Hackel, of Clark County, cited this as one reason she and others are challenging their loss of protective status.

“That’s part of our struggle here,” Hackel said. If the reclassification of jail workers is not successfully rebuffed, “There’s no guarantee that patrol staff will not be faced with this down the road.”

Jim Palmer of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association suggests that other public safety employees could see their claim to protective status similarly challenged, saying the rationale used for this change “does clearly allow for a slippery slope.” Photo courtesy of WPPA.

Phillips scoffs at this concern, saying firefighters are explicitly covered and any sheriff or desk cop would clearly meet the law’s test of being principally engaged in law enforcement.

Some of Phillips critics accuse him of suggesting that counties that continue to offer protective status to jail employees are breaking the law. It’s a charge he freely admits.

“It is illegal,” Phillips said of counties that grant this status to jailers who don’t meet the test. “Is anybody going to get arrested? No. There is no ETF police.”

In videotaped comments to Clark County officials last year, Phillips called the designation of jail employees as protective a “mistake” in need of correction. “Clark County as an employer has a duty under the law to properly designate,” he said.

County Board chairman Hendrickson, who was present for this session, said the county had a legal obligation to revoke the jail workers’ protective status.

“Apparently the (law) says if they don’t work 51 percent of their time on the road doing public safety work, then they shouldn’t be on protective,” Hendrickson said.

The Badger State Sheriffs’ Association recently wrote ETF asking whether there is, as some counties believe, “a prohibition in the law against finding that deputies or correctional officers who work in the jail are eligible” for protective status.

Matt Stohr, administrator of the ETF’s retirement division, replied that there is no such prohibition — provided that the jailers meet the necessary criteria.

Mike Huebsch, secretary of the state Department of Administration, fielded a similar inquiry from the sheriffs’ association. In a March 26 letter, he said his agency could “find no legislative directive whereby Act 10 requires a county to change, reclassify or remove its jailers” from protective status.

‘A high-risk job’

Critics of the reclassification, notably including county sheriffs, argue that jailers face risks and responsibilities similar to those of other law enforcement officers.

In fact, some of the jailers who have lost protective status remain sworn deputies with full powers to make arrests, do investigations and recommend charges.

In Dunn County, which is considering reclassifying about two dozen jail workers, Sheriff Dennis Smith said they often encounter people who are “kicking, fighting, spitting,” just like deputies on patrol. “They have a high-risk job,” Smith said. “Somebody gets fired up and all of a sudden the fight’s on.”

Hackel, who has worked in the Clark County jail for 15 years, agreed, saying “an increase in mental health and drug-related crimes” has made the job progressively more dangerous. And jail staff must often make arrests, as when people visiting others in jail are found to have outstanding warrants.

“It is unconscionable to me that county jailers do not have duty disability protection,” said Sheriff Pedley of Lafayette County.

On March 27, a 36-year-old Marathon County jail guard was left with life-threatening head injuries after being severely beaten by an incarcerated drug suspect. Another guard was also injured. Jailers in Marathon County have long lacked protective status, but the incident has been cited as an example of the dangers of the job.

Sheriff James Kowalczyk of Chippewa County, which stripped its jail workers of protective status at the start of this year, has a hard time expecting them to assume the same risks now that they no longer have duty disability coverage.

Although it hasn’t happened yet, and Kowalczyk doesn’t think it will, “They could put their hands behind their back and say, ‘This is above my job classification.’ ”

Bad for business?

Some of Phillips’ critics allege that he is pursuing a strategy to drum up business for himself and others at his firm.

“This is about the money that lines lawyers’ pockets,” charged Sheriff Pedley.

To date, according to the state Department of Employee Trust Funds, challenges have been filed by 84 employees from five counties: Bayfield, Chippewa, Clark, Marquette and Ozaukee. In each case, the counties are being represented by the law firm of Phillips Borowski.

And Palmer said the law firm has used the issue to build its client base: “The fact of the matter is that the Phillips firm has dramatically expanded its county representation through its ill-advised counsel on the protective status issue.”

But, according to Phillips, anyone who thinks that he is motivated by self-interest does not understand what his law firm does.

“We make money by collectively bargaining on behalf of our clients,” Phillips said. “The less people we bargain with, the less money we make.”

And so participating in a process that leads to fewer employees with collective bargaining power offers only short-term gains, not long-term stability.

Said Phillips, “It really isn’t in our best interest to do this.”

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2013/04/jailers-get-downgraded-fight-back/feed/3State weapons law conceals informationhttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2013/03/state-weapons-law-conceals-information/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2013/03/state-weapons-law-conceals-information/#commentsSun, 10 Mar 2013 06:01:19 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=17879More than 4,000 applicants were denied a Wisconsin concealed carry license and more than 400 had their licenses revoked or suspended in the program’s first 14 months, records show. These included dozens of felons, domestic abusers, illegal drug users and “fugitives from justice.”

This story is a part of our Sunshine Week coverage.Sunshine Week, March 10-16, 2013, is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.TODAY: State weapons law conceals informationDay 2: State agency lags on records compliance

Chart:

“The Department of Justice is not able to provide the records that you have requested because they are not accessible under law,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Kevin Potter, in response to a request for the applications from felons, fugitives and others who were denied licenses.

The DOJ does produce annual reports listing the number of applications, denials and other information. The reports from the last two months of 2011 and all of calendar year 2012 show that of the 167,000 applications received, 4,062 were denied.

Most of these denials were for non-criminal reasons, such as the applicant’s address not matching other state records. But the denied applicants included 232 convicted felons, 435 people with a domestic abuse conviction or injunction, 81 illegal drug users and 64 fugitives.

DOJ spokeswoman Dana Brueck said fugitives from justice who apply for concealed carry licenses are “referred to law enforcement.” The agency does not have the authority to track why an applicant is deemed a fugitive or the outcome of these referrals.

Wisconsin’s concealed carry law shields the release of most data regarding license applicants and holders. The only exceptions are the DOJ’s bare-bones annual report and the prosecution of an offense “in which the person’s status as a licensee … is relevant.”

Potter said this might include the prosecution of a person caught carrying without a license. The DOJ, he added, “would not be authorized” to track instances where this has occurred.

The department maintains a database of concealed carry license holders but access to it is strictly limited. Even law enforcement officers could not routinely check, say, whether a person they are stopping in connection with a violent crime has a license to carry.

Auric Gold: “People who have concealed carry licenses are far less likely to commit crimes than the general population.” Credit: Eric Tadsen

Auric Gold, secretary of Wisconsin Carry Inc., a nonprofit group that advocates for gun-owners rights, is not troubled by the lack of information about licensee holders and applicants.

He noted that the Texas Department of Public Safety found that, in 2011, only 120 of that state’s 524,000 concealed carry licensees in the state were convicted of any crime that year, and cited articles indicating similar low levels of misbehavior by license holders in other states.

“People who have concealed carry licenses are far less likely to commit crimes than the general population,” Gold said. “I’m not aware of any study that has contradicted this conclusion.”

Jeri Bonavia, executive director of Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, a statewide advocacy group that focuses on gun-violence prevention, said the confidential rules are designed to keep such assertions from being truth-tested against the state’s experience.

“There’s no way of knowing whether what proponents of the law are saying is true or not,” Bonavia said. “I think this was intentional.”

Most states shield data

With the passage of its law in June 2011, Wisconsin became the 49th state to let citizens possess concealed weapons. (The remaining holdout is Illinois, where a concealed carry bill is pending.)

The National Rifle Association has hailed Wisconsin’s law as “one of the nation’s strongest.”

Bonavia said its restrictions on information reflect that: “The pro-gun lobby has made sure that the more recent bills have had a secrecy provision.”

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a San Francisco nonprofit group, almost all concealed-carry states now have confidentiality provisions in place. New York joined this club in January, after a newspaper there published the names of licensees. The same thing happened in Florida in 2005 and Virginia in 2007 after news media in those states published databases of concealed carry licensees.

Bonavia stressed that her group does not want individual names to be made public. It just wants to enable law enforcement or researchers to “do an analysis that lets us know whether or not this has been a good public policy.”

Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., agrees research can be done using data that is “totally aggregated, with no personal information.”

For instance, the state of Michigan protects the confidentiality of individual license holders but produces annual reports tracking criminal charges against them. The latest report, for the year ending June 30, 2011, tallied more than 2,700 total charges, including 328 for “brandishing or use of pistol.”

Rand credited the gun lobby for the fact that most states, Wisconsin included, prevent any such analysis. “Information is their enemy,” she charged. “They do everything possible to foreclose access to information.”

The NRA, which helped write and worked to pass Wisconsin’s concealed carry law, did not respond to a detailed request for comment.

Between 1998 and 2002, Rand’s group used data then available in Texas to produce a series of reports titled “License to Kill,” detailing arrests of license holders there. The last report listed more than 5,000 arrests going back to 1996, including 41 for murder or attempted murder, 79 for rape or sexual assault, and 833 for assault.

The Texas State Rifle Association objected, saying this represented a “minute percentage” of concealed carry holders. In 2007, the state shut off public access to this information.

So absolute that DOJ officials are forbidden to reveal whether Wade Michael Page, who last August murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek before taking his own life, was licensed to carry. Page’s prior convictions for impaired driving and criminal mischief, both misdemeanors, would not have disqualified him.

Even a criminal conviction for carrying a concealed weapon without a license, a misdemeanor, would not necessarily bar a person from obtaining one legally or force revocation of an existing license. To have this consequence, it must be a felony conviction or a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence, among a few other disqualifiers.

“Theoretically, a person could have a lot of misdemeanors but not be disqualified,” Gold said.

Of the 167,000 applications (including some resubmitted after being returned), the state granted 149,000 licenses through the end of last year. Of these, 432 were subsequently revoked or suspended, according to the annual reports. The most common reason for revocation was “no longer a Wisconsin resident.”

There were also 36 revocations for unlawful use of a controlled substance, 29 for felony convictions, 50 for misdemeanor convictions or injunctions related to domestic violence, and nine for involuntary commitment to a mental institution.

All 102 suspensions that occurred in 2011 and 2012 were imposed as a temporary bond condition.

But the Justice Department is not allowed to release identifying information on these offenders. In most cases, the only way state residents would learn of misbehavior by individually identified concealed carry licensees is if this comes out anecdotally. This has happened on several occasions.

Jeffrey Albrecht, the village president of Silver Lake, in Kenosha County, was arrested following an incident on March 30, 2012, in which he got into a spat with another man at a restaurant. He was carrying a gun and produced a concealed carry license; police determined that he was intoxicated.

Albrecht pleaded no contest to non-criminal disorderly conduct and was fined $515. The state’s concealed carry law prohibits licensees from carrying a gun while drinking in an establishment that serves alcohol. But Albrecht’s transgression, even if it had resulted in a misdemeanor conviction, would not have triggered revocation of his concealed carry license.

On Jan. 4 of this year, Michael Bukosky of Oconomowoc was arrested in Waukesha after he allegedly pointed a gun at another driver who had cut him off, saying “That’s right — don’t (expletive) around in a concealed carry state.”

Bukosky was charged with pointing a firearm at another person, a misdemeanor. His case is pending.

If Bukosky has a concealed carry license, which cannot be disclosed, being convicted of this crime will not result in revocation, unless a ban on firearm possession is imposed as a condition of bail or probation. Bukosky was released on a $750 signature bond with no such condition, court records show.

Another case in point

On Nov. 22, 2011, police were called to a home in the village of Caledonia, in Racine County, where a dispute erupted between two brothers over a package of cigarettes. It led to a standoff in which one brother was armed with a five-foot sword, the other a .40 caliber pistol.

The pistol bearer, Michael Yocco, told police he had a concealed carry license, according to a news account. Yocco, now 29, was charged with felony burglary in 2001 but avoided a conviction due to a deferred prosecution agreement, so he was legally able to obtain a license.

Caledonia police were quoted as saying that Yocco could lose his license as a result of this incident, because it involved domestic violence. But that didn’t happen, because only his brother Christopher was charged, with misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

“The Racine County District Attorney decided not to file charges against Michael Yocco in this case,” said Caledonia Police Sgt. Brian Wall. “As a result, there was no revocation or suspension” of his concealed carry license.

Six months later, in May 2012, Yocco was arrested in Chicago while protesting a NATO Summit there. Police said he and another man were wearing militia outfits and flying anarchist flags from Yocco’s car, which was found to contain “several spring-loaded knives, a gas mask and a bag containing a large amount of ammunition,” according to a report in the Chicago Sun-Times.

Yocco was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, unlawful use of a weapon and possession of ammunition without a Firearm Owner’s Identification card. In December he was found not guilty on all counts, a Cook County court official said.

But even if Yocco had been convicted, it would not have resulted in the loss of his Wisconsin concealed carry license, as the charges were all misdemeanors.

Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday apparently drove the final nail into the coffin of calls to end same-day voter registration in Wisconsin, vowing to veto any such bill that imposed additional costs.

“If it has a price tag, absolutely,” Walker told the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in an interview at the Executive Residence, when asked if he would use his veto pen. “There’s no way we’re spending money on something like that.”

The idea of ending same-day voter registration gained currency after Walker made a speech in California last month in which he suggested ending the state’s practice of letting voters register on Election Day, citing the burden it placed on poll workers. Two Republican lawmakers began seeking sponsors on a bill to accomplish this in the GOP-controlled state Legislature.

But the idea drew heavy opposition from critics, including some local election officials, and the state Government Accountability Board estimated it would cost the state $5.2 million to develop alternative registration systems required by federal law. The idea also suffered a setback when it emerged that Walker’s son, accompanied by his father, registered at the polls last August.

Walker, a Republican, has previously said he would not sign a bill that included this price tag, but did not promise to veto it. In Wisconsin, bills neither signed nor vetoed become law.

Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, has said he remains interested in exploring the idea.

But on Wednesday, as part of a series of year-end interviews with the news media, Walker said he would veto any bill that imposed any additional cost. Asked how much was too much to stave off his veto pen, Walker said, “To me, cost, period, I’m not interested.”

Walker also further distanced himself from talk that Wisconsin might pursue so-called right-to-work legislation, preventing unions from requiring employees to join or pay dues.

“Someday there may be a debate about that,” Walker said. “But in the next two years I don’t think there will be.”

Walker said the conditions that led to Michigan’s new right-to-work law are not present in Wisconsin, adding that he is eager to get past the protests, recall elections and uncertainty that have marked his first two years in office.

“All those things have been huge distractions towards employers, particularly small businesses, growing more jobs in the state of Wisconsin,” he said.

These protests and recalls, Walker said, greatly complicated his goal of adding 250,000 new private sector jobs by the end of his term, two years from now. He said these events, spurred by his curbs on collective bargaining and union rights for public employees, created a climate of uncertainty for state businesses, even though most of them “liked what we did.”

Walker took issue with a recent published report that the state has seen a net gain of just 25,000 jobs, saying “the raw data shows” that 86,000 jobs were created through June. (PolitiFact Wisconsin examined Walker’s job-numbers claim and rated it “Pants on Fire.”) But while Walker remains committed to his goal of adding 250,000 jobs overall, he acknowledged he may not make it.

“I concede it’s hard,” Walker said. “I have to hunker down. I have to double down. We talk about our budget, it’s going to be about creating jobs, developing the workforce, investing in education. Those are the things that will help us get to that goal.”

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/12/walker-vows-veto-of-same-day-voter-registration-ban/feed/0Tammy vs. Tommy: a spending tsunamihttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/12/tammy-vs-tommy-a-spending-tsunami/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/12/tammy-vs-tommy-a-spending-tsunami/#commentsTue, 11 Dec 2012 20:45:48 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=16477Candidates and interest groups poured more than $78 million into Wisconsin’s recent U.S. Senate race that led to Democrat Rep. Tammy Baldwin’s Nov. 6 win over former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, making it the most expensive Senate election in state history.

New financial disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show that the candidates, including those who lost to Thompson in the Aug. 14 Republican primary, spent just over $34 million during the current two-year election cycle through Nov. 26, the reporting cutoff.

Tammy Baldwin

Baldwin led the candidate spending at $14.7 million. Thompson doled out $9.2 million, including $800,000 of his own money, the FEC filings show. Eric Hovde, who came in second to Thompson in the primary, was third in spending at $6.3 million, almost all his own money.

In addition, outside interest groups reported spending about $44 million on the election, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis of FEC data. The money came from traditional political action committees, super PACs and nonprofit groups.

The $78 million total adds up to more than $20 per vote, including both the primary and general election. It more than doubles the previous record for a Wisconsin federal election, set in 2010, when Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold lost to Republican Ron Johnson. During the two-year cycle that included the 2010 election, the candidates spent $33 million and outside groups chipped in another $5 million, according to FEC filings and the Center for Responsive Politics,a nonpartisan watchdog.

Tommy Thompson

“This was the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin history, by a longshot,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan elections watchdog. “What you see is this marauding horde of interest groups coming into the state and buying up all the

airtime.”

The 2012 Senate race nearly matches the $81 million spent on the June 6 recall election against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, as tallied by Democracy

Campaign. This figure includes estimates of expenditures made by groups that ran so-called issue ads and do not file reports with the state.

The $78 million figure in the U.S. Senate race includes only expenditures that were reported to the FEC. It includes some but not all of the spending on issue ads, which under federal law must be reported only if made within 60 days of the general election or 30 days of the primary. Just under $2 million of these outlays, called “electioneering communications,” were reported in Wisconsin.

Most of the $44 million in outside spending on Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race went for negative messaging. The FEC requires outside groups to list expenditures as being either for or against a given candidate.

Political action committees and other traditional sources accounted for about $16 million, led by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which spent $7.1 million to oppose Thompson and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which spent $5.5 million against Baldwin.

Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money so long as they act independently of a candidate’s campaign, spent another $14 million. Leading this field were the pro-Democratic Majority PAC and Women Vote!, a super PAC run by Emily’s List, which spent $4.9 million and $2.7 million, respectively, mostly to oppose Thompson. American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC, spent a total of $2.7 million for Thompson and against Baldwin.

The third category was 501(c) nonprofit groups, which can conceal their donors. These groups reported parting with more than $13 million, led by Crossroads GPS, which spent $4.7 million against Baldwin, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $2.9 million, mostly to oppose Baldwin.

Overall, the spending by outside groups was nearly evenly divided between the two major candidates. About $20 million was spent to oppose Baldwin or support Thompson. Nearly $22 million was spent to oppose Thompson (some by groups favoring other Republicans) or back Baldwin.

Total spending, including the candidates’ own campaigns, came to $37 million for Baldwin and $29 million for Thompson. She won the election with 51 percent of the vote, compared to 46 percent for Thompson.

In the 2012 election, Wisconsin Republicans were able to keep a 5-3 lead in the U.S. House of Representatives, reclaim control of the state Senate by a margin of 18 to 15 seats, and secure a commanding 60-39 advantage in the state Assembly, despite getting fewer votes statewide. This was the first election after the Republicans ran the state’s redistricting in 2011, and some suggest that the new boundaries played a key role in how the Republicans won significantly more seats with fewer statewide votes. The charts below show the seats won and the total votes for each party in the state Assembly, state Senate, and U.S. Congress elections. The interactive maps show the boundaries of the new districts and the election results there.

Interactive maps

Click to explore data visualization in a new page. In the 2012 elections, the parties’ share of seats didn’t match the share of votes they got.

Video: Tammy Baldwin and Paul Ryan’s redistricting deal

According to state Sen. Tim Cullen, D-Janesville, U.S. House members Baldwin and Ryan in 2001 agreed to redraw their respective districts for each other’s political benefit. He called the deal one of the “classic nationwide examples of gerrymandering.” (Baldwin and Ryan’s offices were contacted for comment Friday afternoon.) This excerpt is courtesy of wiseye.org; the full video of his Nov. 13 remarks is here.

In the aftermath of the Nov. 6 elections, words like “fickle” and “schizophrenic” are being bandied about to describe the Wisconsin electorate.

How else can anyone explain a group of voters who simultaneously picked Democrats Barack Obama for president and Tammy Baldwin for U.S. Senate while preserving a 5-3 Republican edge in its congressional delegation and giving the GOP a commanding majority in both houses of the state Legislature?

But the vote tallies in Wisconsin’s congressional and state legislative races were not nearly as lopsided as the parties’ resulting share of seats, according to a Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism analysis. The breakdown between Republican and Democratic votes was close even in the races for Congress and state Legislature, where the GOP scored substantial wins.

Some election observers say these results, which ensure that Republican Gov. Scott Walker will have strong GOP majorities heading into the next legislative session, owe largely to redistricting — the redrawing of voting district boundaries based on the U.S. Census.

“The outcome of this year’s U.S. House as well as state Senate and state Assembly elections testify to the power of redistricting,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan clean-government advocacy group.

For instance, Republicans received 49 percent of the 2.9 million votes cast in Wisconsin’s congressional races, but won five out of eight, or 62.5 percent, of the seats, according to the Center’s analysis. The Center analyzed unofficial 2012 results reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and official 2010 results from the state Government Accountability Board.

The vote breakdown in the state’s congressional races was comparable to that for president and U.S. Senate, where the Democratic standard-bearers won 53 percent and 51 percent, respectively.

Wisconsin’s experience is not unique.

Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago, recently wrote in a Huffington Post blog that Republicans won 55 percent of all House seats nationally while capturing less than half of the total vote. Stone said the GOP “won control of a substantial majority of state governments” in 2010, then “used that power to redraw congressional district lines in such a way as to maximize the Republican outcome in the 2012 House election.”

In Wisconsin, redistricting based on the 2010 Census was done largely insecret by the Republicans who controlled the state Legislature. Democrats accused the GOP of using this opportunity to cement its electoral advantage, which in itself is not illegal.

In March, a panel of three federal judges upheld most of the state’s redistricting process, including the congressional component. The panel did strike down the redrawing of two Assembly districts, saying it diluted the power of Hispanic voters.

“There is no question — none — that the recent redistricting effort distorted the vote,” said Ken Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Nobody takes seriously the notion that the legislative plan for congressional districts wasn’t politically motivated.”

McCabe said the lines were “drawn in a way that squeezes most Democratic voters into a few districts and widely disperses their voting power across the rest of the districts.” That left GOP candidates “with a pronounced electoral advantage in congressional and legislative races.”

Rep. Robin Vos, state Assembly Speaker-elect.

But Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester, the Assembly speaker-elect, didn’t agree that redistricting played a significant role in his party’s fortunes. He said there have always been districts that due to high turnout and other factors lean to one side and that the GOP simply did a better job of getting out the vote.

“Every district is on its own,” Vos said. “There are competitive seats in every part of the state. And I think that at the end of the day, voters made a choice to pick the best individual candidate.”

In the 2010 contested Assembly races, the GOP got a slightly larger proportion of seats than votes. In 2012, that pattern was even more pronounced.

This year, Republicans won 56 of the 76 contested Assembly seats in the Nov. 6 election. That’s 74 percent of the seats — which they won with just 52 percent of the 2.2 million votes.

The Democratic Party of Wisconsin furnished the Center with data showing that if uncontested races were included in the analysis, Democrats actually received 200,000 more Assembly votes than Republicans. Most uncontested races were in Democratic districts.

The GOP’s new 60-39 majority in the Assembly is nearly the same as it was heading into the election: 59-39, with one independent.

In the state Senate, Republicans won six of 11 contested races, including two seats that had been held by Democrats. The Republicans now have a 17-15 advantage in the state Senate, which will likely increase to 18-15 after a December special election in an overwhelmingly Republican district.

But the Democrats actually outpolled the GOP in these contested state Senate elections, winning 50.5 percent of the 941,000 votes cast.

Cal Potter, a former Democratic state lawmaker who now serves on the board of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a nonpartisan watchdog group, noted that the redistricting after the 1990 and 2000 Census was done by the courts, because the Legislature and governor were split and could not agree on a plan. This time around, he said, the GOP ran the show and was able to maximize its electoral advantages.

On television

The Center’s Bill Lueders collaborated with WISC-TV (Channel3000.com), a CBS affiliate in Madison, on this project. WISC-TV featured Lueders’ work as part of its Oct. 26, 2012, election special, “Swing State Wisconsin.” The money and politics analysis starts around 17:20.

The battle between Republican Tommy Thompson and Democrat Tammy Baldwin is emerging as one of the most important — and costly — races in the country. It has drawn tens of millions of dollars from outside groups who see it as a race that could go either way and possibly determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.

Already, these outside expenditures, coupled with prodigious spending by the candidates, make this the most expensive U.S. Senate race in Wisconsin history.

The Federal Election Commission requires outside groups to promptly report independent expenditures; that means the database listing this spending is being continually updated. As of midday on Friday, Oct. 26, data compiled by the FEC and analyzed by the Center for Responsive politics on its Open Secrets website reveal:

• Outside groups have spent more than $33.4 million on Wisconsin’s Senate race, more than for any other federal race nationally besides the one for president and a Senate race in Virginia. This total is reported, and may be updated, on the Open Secrets site.

Of this amount, all but about $2.6 million was spent either for or against Thompson or Baldwin, the two candidates who emerged from the Aug. 14 primary.

The biggest outside spenders on Baldwin’s side, to date, are the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which spent $5.7 million, Women Vote!, a super PAC run by Emily’s List, which has spent $2.2 million, and Majority PAC, which has spent $3.2 million. Thompson’s biggest outside backers were Crossroads GPS, which has spent $4.7 million on his behalf and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has spent $4.1 million.

• Spending by the two sides is almost evenly divided. Of the $30.8 million spent by outside groups on the two main candidates so far, $16 million has been spent for Baldwin or against Thompson, and $14.8 million has been spent for Thompson or against Baldwin. Most of this money has come in the form of independent expenditures made by political action committees, super PACs and nonprofit organizations. A small share was reported as “electioneering communications,” as federal law requires for “issue ad” outlays within 60 days of an election.

Tammy Baldwin

• Almost all of the money coming into the race from outside groups is for negative messages. Of the $30.8 million spent for or against Thompson and Baldwin so far, all but about $2.6 million was spent to oppose one or the other candidate. In other words, more than 90 percent of the money poured into this race by outside groups has gone toward negative messaging, primarily TV ads.

Through the end of September, Tammy Baldwin had spent $8.5 million and Tommy Thompson had spent $3.8 million. Add in spending by Thompson’s unsuccessful rivals in the primary (Eric Hovde, $6,277,420), Mark Neumann ($3,774,265) and Jeff Fitzgerald ($211,044) and the spending total reaches $22.6 million. Add that to the amount spent by outside groups and the total tops $50 million, well more than the $38 million spent in 2010.

And it will almost certainly go even higher. Through the Sept. 30 filing deadline, Baldwin reported having $3.5 million cash on hand and Thompson, who has contributed more than $800,000 to his own campaign, said he has $2 million on hand.

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/baldwin-thompson-senate-race-sets-new-spending-record-led-by-outside-groups/feed/2Cash from Wisconsin rocked Pennsylvania governor’s racehttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/governors-associations/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/governors-associations/#commentsThu, 18 Oct 2012 06:00:29 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=15938, calls this well-traveled donation a prime example of “an elaborate money-laundering scheme” used by the RGA with success in a number of races for governor in 2010 — one that is legal.]]>

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett. Image from state website

At a campaign stop near Philadelphia early in his 2010 bid for governor, Republican Tom Corbett announced, “We’ve got to raise money,” calling this his campaign’s “No. 1” priority. That same July day, a $1.5 million contribution arrived — from Wisconsin.

Officially, the donation was from the Wisconsin affiliate of a national political organization called the Republican Governors Association (RGA). But the $1.5 million could not travel directly from the RGA to Corbett. Pennsylvania law bans candidates from accepting corporate money, and the RGA accepts millions of dollars from some of the nation’s largest businesses.

In a single day, the $1.5 million gift traveled from the D.C.-based parent organization to the RGA Wisconsin PAC, then to the RGA Pennsylvania PAC and finally to Corbett’s campaign account.

By the time the donation reached Corbett, it was impossible to identify the original source of the cash or whether the donation was permissible under state law.

Barry Kauffman, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, called this well-traveled donation a prime example of “an elaborate money-laundering scheme” used by the RGA with success in a number of races for governor in 2010. He added that it is legal.

The RGA’s funding played a central role in Corbett’s victory. By Election Day he had received a total of $6 million from the RGA — 21 percent of his total fundraising, making the RGA his campaign’s top donor, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Corbett’s campaign office did not return calls for comment for this story.

Corbett’s boosters crushed the competition from the D.C.-based Democratic Governors Association (DGA), which used similar maneuvers to raise $1.9 million for Corbett’s opponent, Dan Onorato.

RGA a major player

The RGA emerged as a major player in the 2010 election, and not just in Pennsylvania.

“We can’t wait until 2012 to start taking our country back,” said Haley Barbour, then governor of Mississippi and chairman of the RGA, in a promotional video released 12 weeks before the landmark 2010 election.

In that election, 37 governors’ seats were up for grabs. Republicans won 23 races to the Democrats’ 13, including the Pennsylvania race that landed Corbett in the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion. Republicans knocked Democrats from 10 seats, and clinched 29 governorships nationwide.

During this election, the RGA raised $87 million, more than the previous three years combined, a Center for Public Integrity review of data from the Center for Responsive Politics reveals.

“It’s hard not to look at the numbers coming out of the RGA and not marvel/quake at the
Mississippi governor’s fundraising capacity,” wrote The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza on the eve of the 2010 vote.

The spending has continued this election season. The organization has kept money flowing by circuitous routes into several states, including North Carolina, Indiana and Wisconsin. Gubernatorial races are being fought in 11 states, eight of which currently have Democratic governors.

Through September, the RGA has spent $40 million of its $43 million haul — nearly doubling the amount raised by the DGA.

Life would be simpler for the RGA if it could make contributions to gubernatorial candidates directly from its D.C. bank account. But it receives tens of millions of dollars in contributions from corporations — and corporate contributions to candidates are banned in 21 states, including Pennsylvania.

The RGA maintains that its activity in 2010 was legal, thanks to its use of state-level PACs.

“The RGA worked with both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin campaign finance authorities in 2010 to ensure we were complying with the law,” wrote RGA spokesman Mike Schrimpf in an email, responding to questions posed by the Center.

Playing a shell game

In Pennsylvania, corporations cannot give to candidates, but individuals can make
unlimited contributions to both PACs and candidates.

The RGA Pennsylvania PAC, which retained the same D.C. address of its parent organization and listed the same treasurer, filed reports with the state itemizing contributions from individuals and not corporations.

Six-and seven-figure donations came to the state PAC from some of the RGA’s most loyal contributors, but only 3 percent of the PAC’s total fundraising came from inside the state. They included $1 million from hedge fund managers Paul Singer of New York, Steven Cohen of Connecticut and Ken Griffin and wife Anne from Chicago. Texas home builder Bob Perry gave $500,000.

Those donations alone comprise more than half of the $6 million that went from the RGA to Corbett.

The DGA Pennsylvania PAC also took contributions from a smaller stable of mostly out-of-state donors, including Texas trial lawyer and Democratic mega-donor Steven Mostyn, who gave $400,000. Mostyn did not return numerous calls for comment.

Though these large gifts are permissible under Pennsylvania law, the RGA and DGA confirm that its donors give to a general fund, not to any specific state. The D.C.-based organizations then make the call on whose money is counted toward which race.

The result is a listing of donors to Corbett and Onorato who were not aware their donations were attributed to a specific campaign.

“It is legal,” said Ron Ruman, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, “as long as the contribution that went to Pennsylvania was from an individual.”

Still, the practice calls into question the accuracy of the governors associations’ disclosure reports.

Billionaire hedge fund manager Singer, for example, has spent years, and millions of dollars, advocating for the right of same-sex couples to marry. He has a gay son who married in Massachusetts, and The New York Times reports he gave $425,000 to back New York’s gay marriage bill.

Corbett ran as a staunch opponent of gay marriage in the state and has maintained that stance in office.

A spokesman for Singer declined to comment.

A weird hole in the structure?

Like the national political parties, the RGA is a nonprofit political organization, regulated and tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 527. But because the RGA is focused on state, not federal, elections, it is largely unregulated by the Federal Election Commission.

“The governors associations are everywhere,” writes Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a legal expert at Stetson Law School, but “are regulated almost nowhere.”

The organization has spurred investigations and lawsuits in several states since it emerged as a force in state elections.

It’s “subterfuge,” said former FEC official Bob Biersack, now a senior fellow with the Center for Responsive Politics. “They’ve figured out this weird hole in the legal structure.”

The RGA has maneuvered skillfully, winning in court when states have challenged its practices. In the past four years, Schrimpf said, the organization has “in no state had a final judgment issued requiring us to pay a fine.”

In making its $1.5 million contribution to Corbett, the RGA used multiple accounts to effectively cloak the original source of the money, thanks to a loophole in Wisconsin disclosure laws.

Wisconsin only requires the PAC, which lists the RGA’s D.C. address, to report donations from Wisconsin residents. The vast majority of the RGA Wisconsin PAC’s money, however, came from out of state.

In the months ahead of the 2010 primary vote, the RGA Wisconsin PAC reported spending at least $5 million, including the $1.5 million gift that ended up with Corbett. The PAC listed its in-state donors, whose contributions amounted to barely more than $31,000.

“It’s very difficult to get to the bottom of where their money came from,” said Nathan Judnic at the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board.

When the money arrived in Corbett’s campaign account, no one, including the Pennsylvania Secretary of State, could decipher the source.

The RGA attached a letter to its campaign filings with Pennsylvania in September 2010. While the origin of the $1.5 million Wisconsin donation was not detailed, the RGA assured the state that it was composed of individual, not corporate, donations.

“In the interest of complete transparency,” wrote RGA Counsel Michael Adams, the organization enclosed its full list of individual donors between January and June of that year. The list contained more than $1.5 million in contributions, but did not say explicitly which of those donations made up the $1.5 million that went to Corbett.

A friend in need

The mysterious July gift of $1.5 million from the RGA Wisconsin PAC came to Corbett just in time. The candidate had suffered a month of bad press after criticizing the state’s jobless for relying on unemployment benefits.

The money helped launch the Corbett campaign’s first ads and a bus tour, which shifted the focus away from the gaffe. By the end of August, his lead in the polls was again more than 10 points, and he was on the road to victory.

In the three weeks before the vote, the RGA would send about $3.6 million more to Corbett to help seal a victory.

Pennsylvania is not the only state where the RGA directed its funds.

The RGA was “the Laundromat and the repository for a lot of the money that was spent all over the country in 2010, there’s no question about it,” said Jay Heck, executive director of the good government group Common Cause in Wisconsin.

In Iowa, the RGA gave about $1.2 million directly to Terry Branstad, according to data from CRP. As in Pennsylvania, Branstad could not receive corporate money, but could take unlimited sums from individuals. As it did in Pennsylvania, the RGA fed it through its RGA Iowa PAC, and listed individuals as donors to the PAC.

Also as in Pennsylvania, the RGA Iowa PAC received donations from the RGA’s PAC in Wisconsin totaling $340,000.

In Texas, the RGA gave $3 million directly to Gov. Rick Perry, according to the CRP data. The donation was routed through its PAC in Michigan, apparently in an attempt to comply with a state law banning corporate donations.

On Perry’s campaign filings, the donation appears as a contribution from the RGA Michigan PAC — because PACs can give candidates unlimited funds to candidates in Texas, as long as the money isn’t corporate.

The seed money for the RGA Michigan PAC came again from wealthy individuals, including prolific political donor Texas homebuilder Bob Perry (no relation to Rick). The homebuilding magnate gave the RGA $4 million earlier in 2010.

The RGA also gave contributions in the millions directly to Republican parties in states where corporate contributions to parties are banned. Through its PACs in Michigan and Pennsylvania, it sent $5.3 million to Michigan’s Republican Party and $2.3 million to bolster the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s efforts.

By contrast, the RGA uses a more direct method in states where corporate contributions to candidates are unlimited.

The organization sent roughly $2.5 million directly to Oregon Republican Chris Dudley, according to both data from CRP and state campaign finance reports. Dudley, who lost a close race for governor, reported the donations as coming from the RGA’s “Corporate Unlimited Account” — no pass-through and no state-affiliated PACs were necessary for the corporate cash infusion.

A repeat performance?

Republican candidates are leaning heavily on the RGA again as 11 more governors’ races head to the November finish line. The organization continues its maneuvers through state and federal election law, and is on pace to break Barbour’s prodigious 2010 fundraising record.

It continues to tap the deep pockets of hundreds of donors who have pledged at least $25,000 annually as members of the RGA’s Executive Roundtable — led by venture capitalist Fred Malek, who worked in the White House under Presidents Nixon and Ford and served as campaign manager for President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Hundreds of these executives met with Barbour, Malek, American Crossroads strategist Karl Rove and presidential candidate Mitt Romney in August for an Aspen fundraising and strategy session, according to Politico. Republican gubernatorial candidates Rick Hill of Montana and Rob McKenna of Washington were also present, as was Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The RGA is devoting millions to four possible pickups as Democrats leave open governorships in North Carolina, Washington, Montana, and New Hampshire. The RGA has dedicated millions to challenge Democratic incumbents in four additional states, including Missouri and West Virginia.

The RGA also dropped about $8 million to protect Gov. Walker from being recalled, and has shored up incumbents in Utah, Puerto Rico and Indiana. Walker is a member of the group’s executive committee.

In the Hoosier State the RGA used its RGA Right Direction super PAC to sidestep the state’s corporate ban and give $1 million to candidate Mike Pence while obscuring the original donors.

The RGA has also used the super PAC, registered to make independent expenditures on federal races, to sponsor ads attacking Democratic candidates for governor in West Virginia and Montana. Donors and spending on these ads were not reported to the states in question after they ran. They were finally reported, however, in mid-October filings with the FEC.

Whether the RGA and the DGA are intentionally evading state laws is difficult to say because of the structure of the organizations.

“Their structure provides plausible deniability to underlying donors,” said Stetson’s Torres-Spelliscy. Donors can “pretend” they’re only giving to the associations and not influence policy in a particular state, “but only that donor and the staff at the governors association knows if this money is given without strings attached.”

John Dunbar contributed to this report.

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/governors-associations/feed/1A house dividedhttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/a-house-divided/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/a-house-divided/#commentsThu, 18 Oct 2012 05:01:18 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=15888ASHIPPUN, Wis. — The initial reaction was not encouraging. The couples I learned of who fit the bill did not respond to my inquiries. A message on the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s Facebook page, seeking to profile “a married couple who are divided in their support” for the two major presidential contenders, drew mostly hostile replies.

One commenter called it “stupid.” Another wrote, “You have no idea what you’re asking for.” A journalism professor suggested that we “poll some marriage counselors” or “cruise the local S&M scene.” He added, in all seriousness, “If you find somebody, I’d like to know.”

Then along came Suzanne Otte Allen.

Kate Golden / WCIJ

Suzanne Otte Allen will vote for President Obama with enthusiasm: “I admire him, and I admire his leadership.”

“I think this is an interesting idea,” posted Suzanne, a mother of three who works at Edgewood College in Madison. “We do have a ‘mixed marriage’ and would be interested in adding to civil discourse.”

Thus began a series of contacts with Suzanne and her husband, Keevin Allen. We’ve spoken by phone, exchanged emails, and met at their modest but pleasant home in the town of Ashippun, near Oconomowoc, in the presidential battleground state of Wisconsin.

Suzanne is a Democrat who will vote with enthusiasm for Barack Obama on Nov. 6. Keevin, an information technology specialist now working under contract at Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee, leans Republican and plans to vote for Mitt Romney, but with reservations.

“Is this the best candidate the Republicans could have put forward?” Keevin asks, apparently unconvinced. But his conservative values and belief in smaller government compel his choice.

Suzanne and Keevin are both bright, college-educated, articulate. Both have worked as teachers and have successful professional careers. They’re a nice couple. They call each other “honey.”

While they lack cable television and avoid talk radio, the Allens are well-informed. They read the daily Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and weekly The New Yorker, and visit a variety of Internet sites, especially CNN.com.

Of the two, Suzanne is more political. She’s taken public stands and writes a monthly column for the Rosholt Record, a small newspaper in Portage County. But both follow politics and consider themselves civic-minded.

How do the Allens coexist with views that reflect the sharp divide in their state and nation? “We talk,” explains Keevin. “We’re always engaging each other.” Adds Suzanne, “We don’t get personal when we disagree.”

Kate Golden

Keevin Allen plans to vote for Mitt Romney, but with reservations: “I’m not a big fan.”

Keevin says he and Suzanne don’t let the other make unsubstantiated claims: “She’ll call me out or I’ll call her out: Show me the facts.” He thinks such discussions make them both better voters.

At one point, I ask the Allens whether disputes over politics actually strengthen their marriage. Suzanne does not rush to embrace this theory.

“Sometimes,” she says hesitantly, before going deeper. “It’s hard. It’s not always easy to disagree with someone that you care about.” They want each other to see things their way. In fact, confides Keevin, “I would love to have everybody think like me.”

The Allens mention a news story from May about a Chippewa Falls woman who ran over her husband with a Dodge Durango in a dispute over Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election. Deadpans Suzanne, “We try not to do that.” Then she delivers the rarest and most welcome form of political commentary. She laughs.

Can we get along?

In 1986 Jonathan Schell, then a writer for The New Yorker, wrote a two-part series, later made into a book (History in Sherman Park) about a Milwaukee couple who voted for the opposing candidates in the 1984 presidential election. The couple, unlike the Allens, were given pseudonyms.

Schell’s conceit was that ordinary voters are the most important players in the electoral process, and that insights can be gained by looking into what factors move them.

“If … I was in one sense seeking out people at the bottom of the political hierarchy — people far from the centers of influence and power, on the receiving end of the government’s decisions — I was in another sense seeking out the people who, under our system, are at the very pinnacle of power,” Schell wrote. “Whatever their level of interest, or concern, or information, their decisions were the ones that stuck.”

Kate Golden / WCIJ

Suzanne says the fundamental difference between herself and Keevin is that “he trusts business and I don’t.” Keevin thinks Suzanne is “too trusting of government.”

The election of 1984, between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale, bears similarities to the current one. A popular yet controversial incumbent was seeking a second term. His challenger was seen as a fitting if uninspiring standard-bearer for his party. To a large extent, the race played out as a choice between the incumbent’s expressions of optimism versus the challenger’s insistence that the country was headed in the wrong direction.

Dennis Riley, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, says it’s still possible for people to disagree about politics without demonizing each other. But, he adds, that’s not something they’d learn from watching TV.

“The people who are doing basic punditry — the folks who fill up 24 hours on Fox and MSNBC — have a real stake in the division,” Riley says. “Their audience comes from one side or the other.”

A great many people, he notes, cannot countenance disagreement when it comes to core political beliefs. Yet there remains a portion of the public which “is able to carry on a discourse, come to opposite conclusions, and not see the other person as evil.” They regard those on the other side as “wrong, but not wrongheaded.”

Reflecting on Schell’s article, Riley believes there are now probably fewer married couples — or coworkers or golfing buddies — who are politically divided but still get along: “The bitterness quotient in American politics has just gone up since the 1980s.” A couple like the Allens is “probably less typical, but no less important. The idea that they still exist is reassuring.”

‘Stronger together than apart’

Suzanne, 43, was born in Michigan and raised in Wisconsin, first in Abbotsford and later Lake Mills. She graduated from the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota with a degree in social science and secondary education and lived for several years in Denver before returning to Wisconsin in the mid-1990s. She landed a job teaching seventh and eighth graders in Johnson Creek.

Bill Lueders / WCIJ

The Allens near Oconomowoc with their three children (left to right): Henry, 7, Natalie, 5, and Claire, 3.

Now Suzanne works half-time at Edgewood College as a graduate assistant for the doctoral program in educational leadership, where she does “a whole lot of everything.” Her column in the Rosholt Record often touches on political topics, as when she lamented how politicians and the media use wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage to sway voters, when there are many other, more consequential issues.

Suzanne and Keevin met through an online dating service in 2000, and married two years later. They have three adorable, happy children: Henry, 7, Natalie, 5, and Claire, 3. Living in Ashippun splits the distance between their two commutes, to Milwaukee and Madison.

Ashippun is in Dodge County, which voted two to one for Walker over Democrat Tom Barrett in 2010 and again in the 2012 recall. Republican candidates for county offices like sheriff and district attorney commonly face no Democratic challengers.

“It’s very Republican,” says Suzanne, with no argument from Keevin. She says her political views — on display this year when she put up a yard sign for Lori Compas, the Democrat challenging state GOP Sen. Scott Fitzgerald in a recall election — “make people have a little bit different reaction to me.” But no one has been hostile, and she has never felt shunned.

Keevin voted for Walker, both in the 2010 election and the June 5 recall. Suzanne, who backed Barrett, attended several anti-Walker protests in 2011.

Sidebar: Getting politics down to a science

What is it that makes one person vote Democratic and another Republican?

Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, sums up some of the recent research done on this question. It focuses on what psychologists have identified as the “Big 5” personality traits: openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and extraversion.“People who score high on openness to experience (curious, original) and agreeableness (friendly, trusting) tend to vote Democratic or lean in a liberal direction,” Burden writes in an email. “People who score high on conscientiousness (organized, efficient) and emotional stability (even tempered, balanced) tend to vote Republican or lean in a conservative direction.

“Being extroverted doesn’t seem to favor either party.

”Suzanne and Keevin Allen say these findings hold true for them — but only to a point.

“I think I’m more open to experience, perhaps,” Suzanne says. “I am mostly trusting. I score high in those categories.” And she agrees that Keevin is even tempered and conscientious: “He’s very thoughtful of others.”

But organized and efficient? “Absolutely not,” she says of her husband. “That’s me.”

Keevin concedes the point, but maintains that he is organized and efficient at work, if not at home. “It’s like the cobbler’s kids,” he jokes. “They have no shoes.”

Burden also mentions other research showing that “people who value black-and-white thinking tend to go Republican while those who value ‘cognitive complexity’ (or areas of gray) lean Democratic.” He recalls George W. Bush’s famous proclamation, “You are either with us or against us.”

“That kind of clear statement is more appealing to those who value decisive statements rather than subtleties,” Burden says.

“I could tell he was a little miffed about it,” Suzanne tells me, sitting next to Keevin at the couple’s dining room table. “But I thought, ‘That’s too bad.’ ” Her next statement, though, applies to both of them: “You have to afford people their own decisions. You can’t force people to think like you.”

Suzanne says her parents, who live in Waterloo, have always been conservative. She thinks they’ve grown more so over time, because they listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Fox News. Some of her 10 brothers and sisters are also quite conservative.

But as she came into adulthood, Suzanne began to self-identify as a liberal, and as a Democrat. Asked why, she evokes the spectrum that runs from individualism and independence (the conservative position) to community and cooperation (the liberal position) and places herself on the latter end. “I believe we’re stronger together than apart.”

Suzanne gives Obama high marks for “leading the nation as best he could through the economic collapse” that happened just before he took office. She also lauds the president for backing alternative energy, recognizing the need to address climate change, issuing an executive order to let the children of undocumented immigrants avoid deportation, and coming out in favor of gay marriage.

But Suzanne’s support for Obama is not, as she puts it, “starry eyed.” She laments his broken promise to close Guantanamo Bay, the controversial U.S. prisoner detainment camp in Cuba. She wishes his healthcare plan had included a “public option,” as an alternative to private insurers. And she’s disappointed that he didn’t do more to support the protests last year in Madison.

A distrust of government

Keevin, 48, was born in San Antonio, Texas, and moved with his family to Milwaukee at age 7. He obtained an associate degree in electrical engineering technology from Milwaukee School of Engineering, and taught computer and business classes part-time at the Madison Area Technical College’s Watertown campus for 16 years. He has a 22-year-old son from his first marriage.

Keevin now works for TEKsystems, a national company that provides IT support, under contract for Harley-Davidson. His task is to help the company outsource some of its IT jobs to India: “I’m helping with the transition.”

Keevin considers himself “a pragmatic conservative,” who votes for whomever he considers the best candidate. For him, that’s usually a Republican, although he did vote for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold over GOP challenger Tim Michels in 2004. In the 2010 election, he joined the majority that pushed Republican Ron Johnson past Feingold but even then chose one Democrat: Doug La Follette, Wisconsin’s longtime secretary of state.

“I’m not a big fan of Romney,” Keevin admits. The GOP nominee strikes him as stiff and uncharismatic and he doesn’t like how Romney tried to score political points against Obama following the assassination of the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Yet Keevin believes Romney has a better skill set for tackling the nation’s woes. “He’s been an executive, he knows how to make decisions, knows how to analyze.”

Keevin’s support for Republicans comes down to a bedrock belief: “Private enterprise creates wealth. Income redistribution through taxation does not.” And he’s deeply distrustful of government that wants to “manage every aspect of life.”

Growing up in Milwaukee, Keevin rubbed elbows with many Democrats yet came to have a negative perception of unions. His parents and siblings were conservative and his Christian upbringing underscored the virtue of self-reliance. He points to the Apostle Paul, who could have taken a salary as a church leader but instead earned his living making tents. He also cites Paul’s admonition, “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

As Suzanne sees it, the fundamental difference between herself and Keevin is that “he trusts business and I don’t.” Sometimes, she says, “the government is the only thing that keeps people from being devoured by businesses.”

Why does Keevin think Suzanne votes Democratic? “She would like the government to take more charge and more care of its citizens.” In his view, she’s “too trusting of government.”

That said, there is something about the political process on which Suzanne and Keevin completely agree: The parties are too partisan, too divided.

“Politics used to be more civil,” Keevin says. Elections were hard fought, but afterward the parties came together to get things done. Now they remain divided, more focused on thwarting the other side than solving problems. It’s a trend he finds “disheartening.”

Not going to extremes

Despite their disagreements, the Allens’ judgments are softer than those often voiced by pundits and political players.

“I respect President Obama,” says Keevin, declaring him the winner in one popular litmus test. “Who would I rather go out for a beer with? It’s definitely Barack.”

Keevin praises Obama’s handling of military matters, including ending the war in Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan. In negative contrast, he cites Romney’s blustery remarks about Russia: “His approach is with a big hammer.”

Yet despite his capacity to criticize the candidate he supports, Keevin largely forgives Romney for the footage showing him dismissing 47 percent of the electorate as moochers. He says these comments show “a lack of maturity” but notes that they were meant for a specific private audience. “He was trying to drive home a message.”

Kate Golden / WCIJ

While Keevin largely forgives Romney for the footage showing him dismissing 47 percent of the electorate as moochers, Suzanne considers the remarks “a slap in the face."

Suzanne, who considers Romney’s remarks “a slap in the face” to people like herself who have worked hard but at times gotten a helping hand from the government, challenges her husband to stake his ground. “What do you think of it?” she asks him. “Do you think that 47 percent see themselves as victims and want a handout from the government?”

Responds Keevin, “There are people who get government services for things they shouldn’t.” But he also agrees with Suzanne when she says, “Most people would like to have a good job and work hard.”

Neither Suzanne nor Keevin sees social issues as a major factor in how they vote. They diverge on these, but take nuanced stands.

“I think pregnancy is a gift from God,” says Keevin, but he doesn’t want the government ending the right to legal abortion. “I want the choice to be there but would discourage somebody because it’s a stupid choice.”

“Stupid for whom?” Suzanne demands. Keevin concedes there are situations in which an abortion might be justified.

Suzanne, for her part, says that while she’s pro-choice, “I don’t mind if there’s some restrictions toward the end” of a pregnancy.

Keevin, taking “a Biblical view,” opposes same-sex marriage. But just as Suzanne starts to point out that the Bible contains a lot of outdated bans, he adds, “I don’t want to see religious practices legislated.” In fact, he’s fine with recognizing gay civil unions and having gays serve openly in the military. The only issue for him is, “Can they do the job?”

Responds Suzanne, “Amen to that.”

Points of agreement

On Sept. 22, the entire Allen family journeyed to Milwaukee to see Obama at a campaign event. Suzanne found it thrilling and says it left her more excited than ever about her presidential pick: “I admire him, and I admire his leadership.”

Kate Golden / WCIJ

The Allens, watching a tape of the Oct. 3 debate: Suzanne found Obama more trustworthy; Keevin was impressed with Romney’s point-by-point economic plan.

Keevin was inspired to hear such a dynamic speaker and be part of the energized crowd. He agreed with some of what the president had to say, on education and the nation’s need to work together on economic recovery, but was unmoved by other parts.

“A lot of the speech, the underpinning was, ‘Let us take care of you,’ ” Keevin says. “That aspect is concerning to me.”

On Oct. 4, the Allens sat down to watch the first presidential debate. The debate actually took place the night before, but Suzanne had work commitments that got in the way. And so the couple watched it on tape, and let me sit in.

“I agree,” Keevin says, when Obama urged steering tax breaks to companies that keep jobs in the United States. “I agree with that,” Suzanne says, when Romney declared it was “not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in.”

But the first time Romney disclaimed any intention to cut tax revenue, Suzanne exclaims, “That’s not what he said before!” And Keevin pauses the tape to expound on why Romney is right when he accuses Obama of undermining the coal industry.

Suzanne came away from the debate, which many observers felt Romney won, even more comfortable with her choice: “When Obama is talking, I believe him. When Romney is talking, I don’t believe him.”

Keevin, meanwhile, was impressed with Romney’s point-by-point economic plan but allowed that politics could get in the way: “He might be stonewalled.”

Both Allens thought the debate exchange felt inauthentic. As Suzanne put it, the candidates seemed to be “battling images of each other, not actual policies and events.” She wondered what might be accomplished if the two would just have an honest discussion.

If they’re looking for a model, the presidential contenders could do worse than the Allens. The couple doesn’t like to disagree, but they do it with style, and good humor. During one interview, after Keevin concedes a point, Suzanne expresses optimism that he may yet come around on his election choice.

“Nov. 6 isn’t here yet,” she says brightly. “There’s always hope.”

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/10/a-house-divided/feed/1Outside groups heat up Senate racehttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/09/outside-groups-heat-up-senate-race/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/09/outside-groups-heat-up-senate-race/#commentsFri, 14 Sep 2012 15:41:37 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=15146With seven weeks to go before the Nov. 6 election, the infusion of special interest cash in Wisconsin’s race for U.S. Senate could overtake even the candidates’ own formidable war chests.

More than $8 million in independent expenditures by outside groups were reported by midday Friday, an analysis by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism shows.

Tommy Thompson

The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, now ranks Wisconsin’s race in third place nationally for independent spending in federal elections this fall, behind only the presidential race and a Senate battle in Texas.

“I think that a lot of eyes are on Wisconsin,” said Kathy Cramer Walsh, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, citing the state’s high political profile. “People are giving money because they want the Senate seat and also because they know what happens in Wisconsin has symbolic importance.”

The independent spending numbers, based on continually updated filings with the Federal Election Commission, include only what was reported as direct electioneering, not so-called issue ads that do not expressly call for a candidate’s election or defeat.

Tammy Baldwin

Of the reported independent expenditures, $6 million went to either support or attack the two remaining candidates: Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, a Republican, and Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

These outlays rival the $6.8 million spent by the two candidates on their own campaigns, through July 25. Baldwin accounted for more than two-thirds of this amount, and also led Thompson in cash on hand, $3.2 million to $353,000.

Super PACS play a role

Of the reported independent spending so far, $4.4 million has gone to oppose Thompson or support Baldwin, compared to $1.5 million to support Thompson or oppose Baldwin. Much of this money has come from super PACs created in the wake of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision. These groups can raise and spend unlimited sums from corporations and unions, so long as they act independently of the candidates’ campaigns.

Thompson has borne the brunt of the negative spending, with $3.7 million being directed against him. This includes about $550,000 spent prior to the Aug. 14 primary by Club for Growth Action, the super PAC of a national conservative group that favored another GOP contender, Mark Neumann.

In all, Club for Growth has spent $1.7 million on Wisconsin’s Senate race, more than any other group. Besides opposing Thompson, the super PAC spent $459,000 to back Neumann and $659,000 to oppose Eric Hovde, another unsuccessful GOP contender.

Barney Keller, a spokesman for Club for Growth, says the group was drawn into the race because it felt strongly about Neumann. Now that another Republican has got the nod, “we’re completely out.”

Since the primary, Thompson’s biggest nemesis is the labor union AFSCME, which on Sept. 4 sank $965,544 into the race to oppose him. Most of this money, $900,000, went for TV ad buys.

Baldwin’s candidacy is also buoyed by several other groups. Women Vote!, a super PAC affiliated with Emily’s List, which supports pro-choice women Democrats, has spent nearly $1.1 million on Wisconsin’s Senate race, including $791,000 to oppose Thompson and $164,000 to support Baldwin.

Majority PAC, a super PAC devoted to maintaining a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, has spent about $1 million on Wisconsin’s Senate race, including $801,000 to oppose Thompson. And the Service Employees International Union has pumped $679,000 into the race on Baldwin’s behalf, through its PAC and super PAC.

Some spending not reported

Baldwin, like Thompson, has also been a target. About $860,000 in independent expenditures have been brought against her, nearly all from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit business group, which ran pre-primary attack ads.

John Kraus, a spokesman for Baldwin’s campaign, said this declared spending represents only a fraction of the total. The campaign, using ad buy information, has estimated that Americans for Prosperity, a national conservative group co-founded by oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, has spent $937,000 attacking Baldwin, and that another national conservative group, Crossroads GPS, has devoted about $500,000 to the same purpose.

In all, the campaign tallies about $4.6 million in outside expenditures against Baldwin, mostly on attack ads.

The Thompson campaign did not return calls seeking comment.

Of more than 300 independent expenditures logged by the FEC, only one has been made in support of Thompson. That was a $648,600 ad buy in August by the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group. Thompson is the only federal candidate it has supported with an independent expenditure during the current election cycle, although its affiliated PAC has parted with about $300,000, to others besides Thompson.

Council spokesman Ryan Baldwin explains the outlay by calling Thompson “a proven leader on issues that will stimulate our economy and get people in Wisconsin and across the country back to work.” The money went for a recent positive television ad, a rarity in the race.

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan greets his supporters during a rally on Aug. 27 at Janesville Craig High School in Janesville, Wis. Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan is far to the right in his views — but far from alone.

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan gives a "send off" speech at Janesville Craig High School in Janesville, Wis., before he leaves for the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Fla. Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

“With energy and vision, Paul Ryan has become an intellectual leader of the Republican Party,” presidential nominee Mitt Romney said in his speech introducing Ryan as his running mate.

The seven-term congressman from Janesville has been pegged as a radical conservative, given his stance against abortion even for victims of incest and his push to rein in entitlement programs such as food stamps and Medicare. “He is an absolute extremist,” fellow congressman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has said.

But because congressional Republicans appear to have shifted further right in the past decade, Ryan’s staunch conservative views now fall more into the mainstream.

“He’s not even the most conservative in the Wisconsin delegation,” said Ken Mayer, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “That would be (Rep. James) Sensenbrenner.”

An analysis of all roll call votes throughout each term shows Ryan typically ranks on the far but not extreme right, according to Mayer. Ryan typically ranks “around 380 or 390” among the members of the House of Representatives, with 435 being the most conservative.

Mayer also cautioned that “extreme” is a politically charged term, used by both sides to define their opponents’ views in a way that repels the people in the middle.

Janesville Rally Slideshow

Click the photo to view the slideshow

This story on television

The Center produced this report in collaboration with reporters at News 3 HD, WISC-TV, as part of “Paul Ryan’s Rise,” an hour-long special that aired on Wednesday, August 29, 2012. View it online here.

Report cards rate Ryan

Like many members of Congress, Ryan tends to get lopsided report cards from interest groups.

For the most recent reporting periods, Ryan drew a rating of 0 percent from NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group; and 3 percent from the National League of Conservation Voters. He got an “F” from the National Education Association, a union representing teachers.

But Ryan’s voting record is rated 100 percent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Christian Coalition, and National Right to Life. He also got a 100 percent rating from the CATO Institute for his votes against trade barriers, and an A grade from the National Rifle Association.

“There’s no question that future Vice President Ryan is a stalwart defender of the Second Amendment,” said Jeff Nass, president of Wi-FORCE, an NRA-chartered state association. “He has been A-rated since he’s been elected (in 1998).”

It is not surprising to see lawmakers getting overwhelmingly lopsided scores, according to Barry Burden, a professor of political science at UW-Madison. Interest groups are often politically polarized and their goal in doing these rankings is “to identify their friends and enemies on the Hill.”

Burden said people in leadership positions — Ryan is the chairman of the budget committee — may get more extreme scores because they tend to be more ideologically consistent. That’s one reason they move up the ranks: “They’re trustworthy in the eyes of the leadership.”

However, Ryan’s scores are not much more extreme than other members of his party. Congressional Republicans received an average rating of 95 percent in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranking, and just 5 percent from the ACLU. Wisconsin Republicans averaged 99 percent from the National Right to Life Campaign and 7 percent from the League of Conservation Voters.

Money, votes align

This chart shows how often Ryan has voted on bills consistent with the interest of the majority of of his campaign donors, compared to the House of Representatives average. Click to enlarge.

Ryan, the budget chairman with a Medicare plan, has received the most campaign support from the finance, health care and insurance industries, according to an analysis by MapLight, a California-based nonpartisan tracker of political money. The Romney-Ryan campaign did not respond to interview requests for this story.

Many of those donors appear to be getting a good return on their investment in him. Over the past four legislative sessions, going back to 2005-06, Ryan has voted the way the majority of his donors wanted an average of 72 percent of the time.

“Politicians always insist that campaign contributions have nothing to do with their votes. Any connection is a coincidence,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog. “What we’ve seen is a remarkable pattern of ‘coincidences.’ ”

The interest group determination for donations is established by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics using contributions from political action committees, as well as the employment and past contribution history of individuals, to assume alignment to particular interest groups.

Ryan’s scores are in line with his peers in Congress, of both parties. Collectively, representatives voted with the majority of their campaign donations an average of 71 percent of the time dating back to 2005-06.

“Everybody, and I mean everybody in Congress votes in ways that are consistent with the people who give them money,” Mayer said.

But not everyone votes with their donors to the same degree. Former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, stood out: He voted with the majority of his financial supporters less than half the time — an average of just 39 percent during the four sessions under review.

Of course, such an analysis can’t say whether the money influenced the votes, or the votes influenced the money.

“Ryan doesn’t vote the way he does because conservative groups like him,” Mayer said. “They like him because he votes the way he does.”

Lukas Keapproth/Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/room-to-the-right/feed/0Realtors gave $1 million to state Club for Growthhttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/realtors-gave-1-million-to-state-club-for-growth/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/realtors-gave-1-million-to-state-club-for-growth/#commentsWed, 29 Aug 2012 19:18:51 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=14910The Wisconsin Realtors Association funneled more than $1 million to a conservative group engaged in political advocacy, against the wishes of some members whose dues funded this contribution.

Newly filed federal tax forms show that the Wisconsin Homeowners Alliance, a WRA offshoot billed as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization devoted to representing homeowners and property owners,” gave $1,059,367 to Wisconsin Club for Growth in the fiscal year between Oct. 1, 2010, and Sept. 30, 2011. This accounted for most of the Alliance’s expenditures that year.

Mike Theo, WRA’s president and CEO, defended this spending as “consistent with the purpose and mission of the organization.” Messages left with Wisconsin Club for Growth, whose listed address is a mailbox at a UPS store in Sun Prairie, were not promptly returned.

Some WRA members bristled last year when it was revealed that the Alliance had given $260,000 to advocacy groups, including $100,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth. The latest report represents a dramatic increase in this support.

Mike Theo said giving money to Wisconsin Club for Growth is consistent with his group's mission. Karen Rivedal/Wisconsin State Journal

Wisconsin Club for Growth is affiliated with the national Club for Growth, but purports to operate independently and has distanced itself from the national group’s effort to oppose the U.S. Senate candidacy of former Gov. Tommy Thompson. (The national group favored a rival GOP candidate, former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann.)

The state group has run issue ads intended to benefit Republican candidates for state office, often by attacking their opponents. Issue ads are unregulated in Wisconsin, meaning there is no mandatory disclosure of funding sources or expenditures.

“It’s a Republican front group that engages in electioneering,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog,

McCabe’s group has estimated, based on records of media ad buys, that Wisconsin Club for Growth spent $9 million in 2011 during the nine state Senate recall elections, all in support of GOP candidates. The group spent just $100,000 during the effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker. McCabe said it’s not usual for different advocacy groups to take the lead in different elections.

McCabe said his group has never been able to identify where Wisconsin Club for Growth gets its money, but “we presume it’s big business interests.”

“Focused only on issues”

The WRA is a trade group representing more than 13,000 state real-estate professionals. The Homeowners Alliance is funded with mandatory dues by WRA members, which were increased last year from $40 to $70.

On its website, the Alliance says it’s “focused only on ISSUES — NOT on candidates or political campaigns. The Alliance won’t engage in partisan elections.”

Theo, in an email, denied that giving money to Wisconsin Club for Growth violates this pledge, saying issue advocacy communications “do not advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate” and are instead “focused on public policy and are part of an effort to educate the general public in a timely manner on important issues.”

Among the educational efforts waged by Wisconsin Club for Growth last summer were ads accusing Reps. Sandy Pasch and Fred Clark, both Democrats challenging GOP Senate incumbents, of favoring “illegal aliens” over Wisconsin vets.

Last year, besides the $1 million it gave Wisconsin Club for Growth, the Alliance reported spending $149,000 on lobbying and gave $25,000 to the Greater Wisconsin Committee, an advocacy group aligned with Democratic candidates.

These expenditures dwarf WRA’s outlays through its political action committee, RPAC – Wisconsin. Since Jan. 1, 2011, RPAC has given just $114,759 to political candidates and parties, both Democrat and Republican. A good share of this amount — $49,650 — went to Walker.

Member contributions to RPAC, at a recommended level of $35 a year, are voluntary; dues collected for the Alliance are not.

That’s a sore spot for WRA members who disagree with the group’s political agenda but say they can’t resign because they rely on the professional services it provides, including access to its Multiple Listing Service, a critical industry tool.

Realtor Darcy Haber feels "totally violated" to have her dues go to advocacy groups she opposes.

“I feel totally violated in that I was forced to pay these dues,” said Darcy Haber, a Madison Realtor. “This is exactly what we feared — that WRA was turning into a front group to support Walker’s policies.” She believes these policies are “hurting the quality of life in Wisconsin” and hence are contrary to WRA members’ best interests.

Theo said there “may be a few members who disagree” with the Alliance’s spending, adding that they are “entitled to their own opinion.” But he noted that the group’s members and board “have driven all of these decisions,” including the use of WRA dues to fund the Alliance.

Half a million added to pot

The Alliance’s most recent tax filings, dated Aug. 13, were provided to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism upon request, as federal law requires. The reports were originally due March 15, but the group obtained two extensions.

The Alliance filing lists $1.1 million in total revenue for the latest reporting period. This includes $560,000 in dues from WRA members, about the same as for the year before, $350,000 in revenue from “Related organizations” and another $150,000 from other sources.

Theo declined to provide additional disclosure, but noted that the group’s filing lists just one “related organization”: the WRA.

Last year’s $30 increase in dues from WRA members to the Alliance should have generated an additional $400,000 in revenue. Theo declined to say how the group is spending its money in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That will be disclosed in the next mandatory tax filing, sometime next year.

]]>http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/realtors-gave-1-million-to-state-club-for-growth/feed/4Outside spending, ideological divide make Wisconsin’s GOP Senate primary a tossuphttp://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/outside-spending-ideological-divide-make-wisconsins-gop-senate-primary-a-tossup/
http://wisconsinwatch.org/2012/08/outside-spending-ideological-divide-make-wisconsins-gop-senate-primary-a-tossup/#commentsMon, 13 Aug 2012 16:36:01 +0000http://wisconsinwatch.org/?p=14541This piece is part of The Center for Public Integrity’s Consider the Source project, dedicated to uncovering the interconnections between politics and the unprecedented flows of money in the 2012 elections.

For months, Republican Tommy Thompson, a former four-term Wisconsin governor, was the favorite to become the next U.S. senator from the state, filling the seat occupied by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl, and boosting GOP hopes of gaining control of Congress’ upper chamber.

But thanks to $3.4 million in spending by outside groups and an ongoing ideological divide within the Republican Party, Thompson may not even make it through Tuesday’s primary much less win the general election.

Former Wis. Gov. Tommy Thompson. Polls show him in a dead heat with Eric Hovde for a U.S. Senate seat.

Thompson’s main primary rivals are former Rep. Mark Neumann, the favored candidate of the increasingly influential super PAC Club for Growth Action, and businessman Eric Hovde, who has invested millions of dollars of his own money in his candidacy.

Club for Growth Action has spent $1.7 million on ads, more than any other non-candidate organization, with about $1.2 million going toward criticizing Neumann’s opponents.

As a super PAC, the organization can accept unlimited funds from corporations and individual donors and spend that money on advertising as long as it is not coordinated with candidates’ own campaigns.

“Wisconsin Republicans who support limited government have an easy choice,” Club for Growth President Chris Chocola has said. “Neumann is the only candidate running for Senate in Wisconsin with a proven conservative record.”

Both Thompson, who served as Health and Human Services Secretary under President George W. Bush, and Hovde have solid conservative credentials — but not conservative enough for the anti-tax, small government-touting Club for Growth and its financial backers.

A week ago, Rep. Todd Akin won the GOP Senate primary in Missouri, beating out candidates who suffered from damaging super PAC-funded advertising. While Club for Growth was not active in that election, it has seen its preferred candidates prevail in GOP Senate primaries in Indiana and Texas, where politicians favored by the party establishment beaten handily.

Of the $3.4 million expended by outside groups on ads in Wisconsin advocating the election or defeat of a GOP candidate, three-fourths has been spent on attack ads, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Democrats are cheering the nomination of ultra-conservative candidates by the GOP, betting that voters will prefer a more moderate choice in the Nov. 6 general election.

Ahead of Wisconsin’s GOP primary, Democratic super PACs Majority PAC and Women Vote! have both taken aim at Hovde and Thompson. The super PAC arm of Democratic-aligned EMILY’s List, Women Vote! has spent about $420,000 on ads, and Majority PAC has spent more than $370,000.

Including ads targeted at the Democratic candidate, independent groups have spent about $4.5 million in the Wisconsin Senate race. Most of the rest comes from $300,000 in support of Democratic candidate Rep. Tammy Baldwin and about $850,000 spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposing her candidacy.

Neumann, who served in Congress from 1995 until 1999 and also enjoys the endorsement of South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, was once kicked off the House Appropriations Committee for bucking GOP party leaders by not supporting their military spending bill. An evangelical Christian, he once said that if he were God for a day, “homosexuality wouldn’t be permitted.”

Club for Growth’s traditional political action committee has also spent almost $55,000 on pro-Neumann messages, and, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, it has bundled more than $600,000 in contributions for his campaign. The financial assistance has been a tremendous help to Neumann, who has raised about $3.8 million, with more than $1.2 million coming from his personal wealth.

Thus far, Hovde has raised the most of the three candidates, more than $5.5 million, with $5.1 million coming from his own funds. Thompson has raised $3.1 million, FEC records show, with more than $630,000 coming from his own checkbook.

On Thursday, Public Policy Polling showed Hovde at 27 percent, Thompson at 25 percent and Neumann at 24 percent. Republican state Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, who is also seeking to become party’s Senate nominee, received 15 percent in the PPP poll. With the poll’s 4 percent margin of error, the race is a tossup.

Hovde is a wealthy hedge fund manager whose father worked in the Reagan administration. He earned the ire of conservative activist Grover Norquist for declining to sign his pledge not to raise taxes, although the candidate says he will lower the tax rates for individuals and corporations if elected.

Hovde has gotten some last-minute help from the conservative nonprofit American Future Fund which spent about $120,000 on a pro-Hovde ad during the final week of the race. The super PAC of the tea party-aligned FreedomWorks also spent a few thousand dollars on expenditures supporting Hovde, including online ads and yard signs.

“Our activists want to send new blood to Washington — not the recycled politicians of a bygone era,” Max Pappas, the vice president of public policy and government affairs at FreedomWorks said in a press release.

For his part, Thompson has gotten support from a pro-business, nonprofit group called Americans for Job Security. In early August, the group launched a $650,000 TV ad buy against Hovde, as the Center for Public Integrity previously noted.

Nonprofit spending groups can pay for the same type of ads that super PACs run, but required to release the names of their donors.

Since leaving the Department of Health and Human Services, Thompson has sat on the boards of more than a dozen companies, mainly in the health care sector. At one of these, Thompson advocated for the use of radio frequency identification chips in humans to electronically store medical records and even pledged to be implanted with one himself (though he never did).

During the primary, Thompson has taken heat for his position on an individual health insurance mandate, a policy that he once supported but now opposes.

“If you’re going to be able to cover the uninsured, you’re going to have to have some degree of a mandate to cover the uninsured,” Thompson said at a panel in 2006, praising what Republican Mitt Romney had achieved as governor of Massachusetts. “The truth of the matter is… just like automobile insurance, you’ve got to have coverage.”

Thompson now says he wants to repeal the health care reforms signed into law by President Barack Obama, which include a mandate for individuals to have health insurance and subsidies to help Americans afford private insurance policies.

Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s pick for vice president, may be the face of the Tea Party favorite caucus in Congress. But big business interests have also contributed mightily to the budget chairman’s campaign, according to analyses from the nonpartisan political money trackers at MapLight.

Wall Street, insurance, health care and pharmaceutical interests contributed the most to the Janesville Republican’s campaign from July 1, 2009, through June 30, 2011. Those corporate interests accounted for about $817,000 of the $3.2 million Ryan raised during this two-year period.

One of Congress’s top fundraisers, Ryan entered the current election cycle with more than $3 million cash on hand. He now reports having $5.4 million cash on hand in his congressional war chest.

Like many legislators, Paul Ryan — a career politician who is chairman of the House budget committee and also sits on Ways and Means — raises plenty of money from the District of Columbia.

In MapLight’s most recent analysis, of data from 2005 to 2007, 65 percent of his contributions came from outside Wisconsin and 83 percent from outside his southeastern Wisconsin district. Donations from Washington and Virginia together accounted for more than those from Wisconsin.

Readers can explore the data at Maplight.org’s Paul Ryan page. The publicly available data is compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Members of Congress are not required to precisely disclose their personal wealth, other than to identify individual assets within set ranges. Ryan’s most recent disclosure, filed in May, puts him toward the high end of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation.

According to this filing, Ryan has assets worth more than $2 million but less than $10 million. Much of his money is salted away in money markets, mutual funds and individual stock holdings. He has substantial investments in mining companies and Home Depot. He also reports having between $100,000 and $250,000 set aside in Edvest, a college savings plan.

Ryan reports owing between $250,000 and $500,000 for the mortgage on his Janesville home.